And the consultants (and journalists) taking most of their comments too far about the players is very good???
To be honnest, Lizarazu has made several not so nice comments about Evra (as he has done about several other players too).
apparently it's a longstanding thing since evra was a tadpole and liza was the bigshot (don't forget they were in competition for the same post at one time). liza is living in a glass house: he's lucky no one in the media mafia is going to remind people (and most fans are too stupid to remember by themselves, though plenty of sardines will never forget) just what a brat he was as a player. more recently, he's a horrible announcer, perhaps the worst. he has his pet players and those he dislikes, and his comments are always much more a reflection of his own prejudices than of what is actually going on on the field. he also has a curious prejudice against les bleus since he and his cronies left the team: i remember a france-germany where he was not very discreetly rooting against france despite the fact that his paycheck was coming from TF1! in general he is, perhaps not hypercritical, but certainly criticizing just for the sake of it: two stray passes and he's on for 10 minutes of how "france lacks precision" even if they start stringing them together like pearls... then he'll change is record to france lacks something else. always negative, above all never a propos, and just platitude after platitude, with never a hint of real insight.
You message is wrong : Evra and Lizarazu have never been in competition for the starting spot in the NT, Evra did not even take part of the Euro 2004. At that time we considered that Gallas could help on the position of left back. The most discussed call up was the one of Desailly who funnily criticized the former players of the NT who were now announcers right before the Euro and his performance at the Euro was a fiasco.
From a factual POV Nicolas correct, Evra was still in Espoirs at Euro 2004, and we were riding on a long winning streak so the backline wasn't to be changed or challenged (with the exception of Nicolas about Desailly, who then sadly was too aged).
Nasri out for 8 weeks, thank God it isn't as bad as it looked initially though. I'm sure if he plays well when he comes back as he was doing before the injury and doesn't get injured again, he'll make the french WC squad. Mbiwa should get atleast 3 matchs suspension for that tackle imo.
Didier ALS Ice Bucket: http://www.fff.fr/actualites/143905-552402-deschamps-releve-le-defi-de-wilmots
Here is DD's list for the upcoming France friendlies: Goalkeeper: Mandanda, Lloris, Ruffier Defenders: Debuchy, Digne, Evra, Koscielny, Mangala, Sagna, Sakho, Varane Midfielders: Cabaye, Matuidi, Mavuba, Pogba, Schneiderlin, Sissoko Forwards: Benzema, Cabella, Griezmann, Lacazette, Rémy, Valbuena Sissoko must be Deschamps' dealer or illegitimate love child to keep getting selected.
the only thing that keeps me from agreeing with you is that he actually was damned useful the last few times he played. i was unexpectedly pleased.
He actually was and I was surprised! That's the thing though, we shouldn't be surprised by good performances from the "best players" France has to offer; we should expect them.
the reason i was surprised is that sissoko looked like gold-plated dynamite back when when we were also very high on alou diarra, abou diaby... in an era when yann m'vila was still an unknown! since they've all disappeared corps et biens, it's just weird to see moussa rise from the dead this way.
obscene to see professional athletes promoting crap like this. kfc i can't stand but can understand some liking it. but chipsters? in a blindfold taste test i defy anyone to distinguish these from the little styrofoam wafers amazon uses for dunnage.
kfc is wtf because if they actually put one of those pieces of "chicken" in their mouths at clairefontaine they would probably be fined by their clubs. vw is especially wtf for the women's team since the majority of players are from OL and the love they feel for wolfsburg has to make those tops give them real physical hives.
and one more reason to like OL! how come the kids coming out of tola have their heads screwed on straight and almost all other young french players are such gold-plated slapheads? note that raphael varane is a GREAT role model and hatem ben arfa is the petit prince des tetes a claques... but HBA spent 3 years at INF hearing every day he was the next zidane, he was already irrecuperable when he arrived in lyon.
Some people (like Pierre Menes) were saying, what's the big deal...he got carried away when he scored the goal. But no. That type of attitude needs to be snuffed out while the kids are still young and I'm glad that people got on his case about it. Its obvious that all of the Sweden players were fired up after he did that and its probably the reason why they were able to score 2 minutes afterwards.
it would be wrong to blame the loss on this though. as sloppy and uninspired as they were in le mans (ex: sam umtiti played the worst match i've seen from him in 3 years and he had the armband) that 2-0 victory was just raw logic : the difference in quality was just too great. i would almost want to watch the return leg out of sheer curiosity to see how the hell such a thing could have happened. they must have ALL been light years beyond dreadful.