Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Euro 2004 Squad

French National Team manager Jacques Santini has named his his 23-man selection for this summers Euro championships.

In alphabetical order, they are:
Fabien Barthez, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Grégory Coupet, Olivier Dacourt, Marcel Desailly, William Gallas, Ludovic Giuly, Thierry Henry, Mickaël Landreau, Bixente Lizarazu, Claude Makelele, Steve Marlet, Benoît Pedretti, Robert Pires, Jérôme Rothen, Willy Sagnol, Louis Saha, Mickaël Sylvestre, Lilian Thuram, David Trezeguet, Patrick Viera, Sylvain Wiltord, Zinedine Zidane
The AP has noticed a few conspicuous absences. Despite having won the Bundesliga championship with his team Werder Bremen, Johan Micoud will not be on the Euro 2004 squad, along with Sidney Govou, Peguy Luyindula and Philippe Mexès.

Djibril Cissé (aka Sisko) won't be there and most surprisingly... Nicolas Anelka will be left out despite his wopping 25 goals for Manchester City this season.

On Thursday, France will play a friendly against BRAZIL (!!!) its centenary match, according to Reuters. Many important players will be missing due to prior club engagements, including Giuly and Rothenm, Barthez and Marlet, Silvestre, Lizarazu and Sagnol. There'll be a number of back benchers on the field against Brazil however there's no sense thinking France will have a chance against Brazil any time soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like a great team doesn't it ?

Anelka snubbed the national team and its coach for two years. I feel sorry for him but is excuses came too late. Cissé's suspension was well deserved (and even reduced in appeal).

Both will be in Germany in two years (well, if we qualify...).

The Brazil game tomorrow will just be a warm-up for the June 13th mother-of-all-games against England. My English colleagues are already shaking !

Douglas said...

Let's hear it for England! Brazil will soften them up for you. Though I understand why England shaking. (They were recently ranked behind the US for shot time!) You can only hope that Barthez is in goal - that'll give England a chance.