Yes Emily Murphy, England u-17 will play USA twice in Bradenton at the end of the month. She will be there. Maybe US Soccer will stream those games.
Don’t know if they already made their final selection of the U-17 roster for the U.S. Because last time it was ID training. So don’t know who is actually on the roster.
Wendie Renard's playing for the NT might be numbered; she been spotted recently wearing this cap loosely translating to (pardon my French) F...U---Diacre!
Sure it’s not photoshopped? Could be a opposition team trying to divide the French team prior to Euros.
I was hoping either Shjl or Folken would enlighten us with more info, but apparently Diacre had a strict ‘no caps’ policy during practice & Renard got summarily admonished by the coach for wearing one anyways . So after that incident, Wendi is getting revenge by wearing this new cap in public. The roster for the Tournament of France will be announced in a few days from now. We’ll see if Diacre retaliates by not naming her to the squad
Gaetane Thiney, the latest player to criticise Corinne Diacre. Nearly all the senior players have complained about her. She ended up doing an two page interview with l'Equipe today. Nothing new, she says she has learnt from her mistakes and some of the criticism she got was unfair. She also said the has spoken to all the senior players.
French Squad List for Le Tournoi de France 1st edition Nice to see Ouleymata Sarr is back, she performs very well with Bordeaux so far. The Cascarino' sisters are reunited too!! No Gaëtane Thiney.
A glimpse of Les Bleues's training prior to tonight game against Brazil I expect a more 'experimental' team than the one against Canada Edit : PS: as you can see @hotjam there is no caps in training session and it is for the best ...wearing caps in soccer practice is dumb anyway who does that?
I hoped someone brought the proof about that but no one did. For now it's all just gossip. It's ok Wendie brings caps in training though but I don't see her wearing caps while she trains, I have a hard time thinking she pratices headers while wearings caps; it is just not pratical when we know it's her stronger point.
UEFA have rescheduled the postponed qualifiers due to the Covid-19 18 Sep 20 : Serbia - France 22 Sep 20 : North Macedonia - France 23 Oct 20 : France - North Macedonia 27 Oct 20 : Austria - France 27 Nov 20 : France - Austria 1 Dec 20 : France - Kazakhstan
The FFF president Noel Le Graet has announced yesterday that coach Corinne Diacre's contract wil be extended by one year, so that she can lead the team to the Euro 22 in England. Cue social media reaction from a certain fans. The big question is should Diacre initiate a change of generation in preparation for 2023 or keep the experienced ones for the Euros and the following WC a year later. From the WC players age in 2023: Renard 32, Torrent 31, Henry 33, Le Sommer 34, Bilbault 33, Bouhaddi 36, Debever 35, Peyraud-Magnin 31. And also will some better quality players come through ?
This is a good and important question, not just for France but for women’s teams in general. In order to perform the best in the World Cup, is it best to see it as a 4-year cycle, with the build-up starting as soon as the prior WC is over? That is what I think, but there are others who disagree.
We certainly failed to do that in 2015. Coach carried on with the same generation for the OG16 lost again in QF. Coach got sacked. New coach have that generation a last hurrah at Euro 17. QF again sacked. 2 years rebuild iso for Diacre QF again... logic says she should have been sacked as well. But no going now till 22. And you can't initiate a generation change in one year. Also we have to prepare the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as well. The added bonus of knowing we are already qualified. The biggest problems of changing guards on a 4 years cycle is if the coach's job is not always stable.
Same thing could be asked; when will the US rebuild? We all know the NWSL doesn’t pay enough/ the real or decent money is if you can make it unto the USWNT. Thus a lot of Americans quit In their prime if they can’t make the NT. So shame to see all that talent go to waste besides the reported toxic relationship between the head coach & NT players, what’s hurt most is that while France was the only country to make it to the semi- finals of the last three u20 World Cup, almost none of those once promising youth players have been able to transform into star, national team players. Probably the most successful, MBock, still takes a back seat to Renard at CB. Cascarino has made it to part time starter at both Lyon & NT, but the way she dominated at the 2016 u20, she looked like she was going to be the next Marta. Big disappointments so far been Tolleti, Leger, Lavogez, Tarriue(many more)/the way they played as youth, you expected them to be the stars of the future. Guess you could say time is still on their side, by compared to the success of the previous generation at an early age(Renard, LeSommer, Henry, Necib, Majri) its been disappointing. In the meantime, Holland has become the top Euro country in the last two major tournies, partly based on developing two superstars of the game; Miedema & Martens(though obviously there’s more to it for their success). Despite lackluster showings in their recent youth teams, Germany’s transformed their youth players to now, 3 teenage starters on their senior squad/eight players 22 & under on their roster
Youth NT schedule: U19 Training camp in September and October. Qualifying round in Wales 19-27 Oct against Slovakia, North Macedonia and Wales. November two friendlies. 1-10 March La Manga U19 tournament April camp in preparation for the Elite Round 5-13 April Elite Round (if qualified) May friendlies July/August finals in Faroe Island. U17 Training camp in August and September Qualifying round in Estonia 26 Sep to 5 Oct with Iceland, Ukraine and Estonia December two friendlies in Holland January and February training camp 17-29 March Elite round (if qualified) End of April/early May training camp 3-17 May finals in Bosnia.
No information yet on the U20 preparing the World Cup and the U23 team. As a one off the U18 team is also playing competitive football rather than just training camps. This is due to Covid-19 delaying the 2019/20 U17 tournament. August training camp September training 14-21 Sep Elite Round in England with Slovakia, Wales and England 1-11 Oct Finals in Sweden ( if qualified) Dec friendly Jan training camp Feb training camp 13 Feb- 7 March World Cup in India ( if qualified)
And the latest in the saga players v Diacre. They tried to organise a coup after the World Cup but failed. Back in August 2019, the players wanted to speak to the FFF president Noel Le Graet to get rid of Diacre, as they did not like being criticised ( rightly imo due to bad perforamcnes, but not in the right form) in the press. They also did not like her autoritarian management style. It is fair to say Coco is quite rigid and it was needed after the more lenient management style of Bergeroo and Echaoufni. But Diacre heard about the revolt and spoke to Le Graet before the players and explained what she was going to do next. Le Graet then backed her up in front of the players, who then decided to shut up seeing they would not win. Then Diacre went on interogating players to see who had organised the putch. That is such a stupid thing to do. France Football says players did not take the interrogation methods really well ( one on one chat) and that's fair enough .Some of them were reportedly crying after being interrogated. Crocodile tears? The article also says some of them thought about quitting but did not. There is no doubt, who leaked the information to the press as they think it would benefit them. No doubt as well that the coach took the hard line straight from the start of her stint and that did not go down well with the players who were settled in their comfort and did not expect to be roughed up. When you reach that kind of breakdown in communication and relationship, the coach or the players should go. The FFF president kept the coach, because he trusts her and also because France has changed the NT manager already three times in 7 years and the coaches are not the only people responsible for the failure not to go past the quarter-finals of any tournament since 2012. It is clear that Diacre is still in charge because Le Graet is backing her up as many want to get her out, but the FFF president is the ultimate decider on the matter. As we need to rebuild those players who want to quit might do us a favour and go and leave the next generation 3 years to prepare for the World Cup 2023 and 4 years for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
I don’t think it was so much a “hard line” (they’ve had tougher treatment - with Pat Lair as coach no need for hair dryers) as Diacre’s general lack of competence that got on players’ nerves : horrible communication both internally and in the media, incomprehensible roster choices (a steady stream of players in camp who clearly were very far from NT level, while players of proven merit got snubbed), lack of tactical direction… the same happened to CD’s mentor Bruno Bini and his nebulous "projet de vie". They got along with Bergeroo or Echouafni not because he read them bedtime stories and tucked them in at night but because they sensed a real professionalism that Diacre has never shown. They ran the risk of compromising their future in the NT but maybe felt they had nothing to lose : the atmosphere was unpleasant, but above all they’re not in the EdF to sit around the fireplace at Clairefontaine, they want to win a trophy and can’t see how that could ever happen under CD’s guidance.
At least France got back their 3rd place ranking, but the most concerning figure is the female participating in soccer stat which listed only 200K registered for the entire country. Compare that to the German Fed recently announcing an 1.1 million figure or even The Dutch with a reported 176K(though they got nearly 4 times less population). On the other hand the French offer a lot of diversity with a balanced selection of athletic, physical & technical players which should help them especially after the new FIFA report that the last WC made remarkable progress in “speed & intensity” over the previous WC
The current count of licensed women is 198 340 : (158 132 players), 261 864 club admin, 35 723 coaches and 21 672 referees. This is not bad at all. Here are some numbers from the past 2009/10 55 605 2011/12 59 409 2012/13 66 330 2015/16 103 276 We are improving slowly but surely. There is a lot of work done by the FFF at grassroots level to be able to get all the young girls a football club as close as possible from their home. Not sure the push is as big for senior amateur women players though.
that's a big consideration in comparing the number of card-carrying players in France with the Netherlands or Germany. when I lived in Holland (40 years ago !) almost all the adult women in the complex i lived in played football in a rec league; indoors or out. even my girllfriend's MOM who was about 60 played on a seniors team. none of that exists here, i'd say practically 100% of girls who play football are under 25.