Official France vs New Zealand PRE Match & PBP Thread [R] France vs New Zealand • Sunday, June 22, 3:00pm EST • • Galavision, Live, 6 p.m. (ET), 3 p.m. (PT) • Team Boards at BigSoccer.com • France • New Zealand • Webcast Information • Specifics TBA • AIM PBP Chatroom: France vs New Zealand • Instructions to join the chat. This post will be updated later in the week for corrections and additions. Items in gray will be updated once available or confirmed. Please note that these threads are intended for non-partisan discussion of the upcoming matches. More partisan discussions should go to one of the boards listed above. No Flames • No Trolls
Teams: France: M. LANDREAU B. LIZARAZU M. DESAILLY (c) L. THURAM P. MEXES L. GIULY O. KAPO B. PEDRETTI T. HENRY S. WILTORD D. CISSE New-Zealand: M. UTTING G. DAVIS R. NELSEN C. ZORICICH (c) D. HAY M. BURTON R. DE GREGORIO S. ELLIOTT N. HICKEY C. BOUCKENOOGHE V. COVENY
Ok, I may have been one of the 5 people on these boards who actually watched this game, but was it just me or was their some pretty iffy sportsmanship by the french? On their 3rd goal, Cisse and Co. pretty much just camp out in front of the NZ goal. Not really celebrating too hard, just kind of standing there. Just struck me as rubbing it in the nose in the keeper and defense. Then, up 3 goals in injury team, the French go on to score another. Theyve already handily won their group, the game is out of reach. The Kiwis are dead on their feet, why not just mercifully run the clock out? Nope. Score a 4th. Ok, that I suppose can happen. So what happens after that? They push for a 5th and get it. NZ is hardly even trying at that point. Dunno, maybe its just me, as I dont think there is any clear etiquette about these things, but seemed kind of classless. As I said though, could be just me, wanted the opinions of other people, prefferebly someone not from NZ or France.
Well France no doubt dominated that game, and why shouldn't they, afterall they are the No 2 team in the world, and current Confed Cup champions. The first 2 goals were with a NZ still kinda playing, the 3rd they were still there but they were thinking of getting back home. The 4th and 5th came cause NZ just stepped aside and didn't care anymore. When France, and I'm not taking anything away from the French team, but when they were presented with teams who were still playin in the tourney, like Colombia (France 1 (PK) - Colombia 0), and Japan (France 2 (1 PK) - Japan 1) they weren't steam rolling over their opponents as easily. So yea, France are a pretty solid team, but today NZ wasn't playing for anything but honor, and they lost even that....