French national football team coach Raymond Domenech has named his squad for Les Bleus two-legged with the Republic of Ireland. There are few surprises in the squad apart from the omission of former France captain Patrick Vieira in favour of younger Ligue 1 talent like Loic Remy and Rod Fanni. France and Ireland meet in Dublin on [. Click to continue reading...

This dive is so bad that FIFA/UEFA will probably ban the French full back Rod Fanni (yes you read that correctly) for six matches and then on appeal decide they made a mistake and will rescind the ban. Thanks to The Spoiler for bringing this to our attention.

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France are finding a bit of form.

And none too soon.

Domenech has pulled a rabbit out of the hat in Gignac.

Gignac put the match to rest with a sumptuous third.

Benzema got the start up front along with ever-presents Thierry Henry and Sidney Govou.

Stalwarts like Toulalan and L.

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According to Giscard Gourizro at Sky Sports News, Rennes defender Rod Fanni admitted that he was told that Everton are looking at him, although nothing is official. He said,

"I am not aware of any club interested in me .

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This is it. For all the marbles. The group of players that will (absolutely positively will) get us at least to the UEFA playoffs for a World Cup slot.

Only "nouveau" is Nicolas Douchez from Rennes. (And FOUR goalkeepers? Have Lloris and Mandanda not impressed Domenech enough to guarantee their spots for next summer?

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Abou Diaby: Serbia attack's most dangerous weapon?

This upcoming weekend will be filled with World Qualifiers up until Tuesday so I will not comment much on Le Championnat from last weekend that saw a very disappointing 0 – 0 between Marseille and Bordeaux, a very convincing 3 - 0 win by PSG against Lille, St Etienne's first 3 points versus a sad Grenoble and more Lyon magic thanks to Lisandro Lopez (ARG), Gomis (FRA) and Bastos (BRA).

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 France coach Raymond Domenech, selected his squad for two vital World Cup qualifiers against Romania and Serbia.  Goalkeepers: Cedric Carrasso (Bordeaux) Hugo Lloris (Lyon) Steve Mandanda (Marseille) Defenders: Eric Abidal (Barcelona) Gael Clichy (Arsenal) Julien Escude (Sevilla FC) Patrice Evra (Manchester United) Rod Fanni (Rennes) William Gallas (Arsenal) Bacary Sagna (Arsenal) Sebastien Squillaci (Sevilla FC) Midfielders: Abou Diaby (Arsenal) Alou Diarra (Bordeaux) Lassana Diarra (Real Madrid) Yoann Gourcuff (Bordeaux) Jeremy Toulalan (Lyon) Florent Malouda (Chelsea) Frank [. Click to continue reading...

New! Shocking! Amazing! Unusual!

Except not really.

Clichy and Diaby are back from injury. Vieira is not called up. Remy merited a recall. Other than that...

No new players on the list for the WC qualifiers against Romania and Serbia. Domenech is obviously assuming that the old guard can get the new job done.

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Vieira didn't make the squad. Domenech said he needs games to back into the team. Here's who did make it:

Goalkeepers
Hugo Lloris (Lyon)
Steve Mandanda (Marseille)
Cedric Carrasso (Bordeaux)

Defenders
Eric Abidal (Barcelona/ESP)
Julien Escude (Sevilla/ESP)
Patrice Evra (Manchester United/ENG)
Rod Fanni (Rennes)
William Gallas (Arsenal/ENG)
Bacary Sagna (Arsenal/ENG)
Sebastien Squillaci (Sevilla/ESP)

Midfielders
Alou Diarra (Bordeaux)
Lassana Diarra (Real Madrid/ESP)
Yoann Gourcuff (Bordeaux)
Florent Malouda (Chelsea/ENG)
Moussa Sissoko (Toulouse)
Jeremy Toulalan (Lyon)
Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich/GER)

Forwards
Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea/ENG)
Karim Benzema (Real Madrid/ESP)
Thierry Henry (Barcelona/ESP)
Andre-Pierre Gignac (Toulouse)
Loic Remy (Nice)

Ribery is coming back from injury and Domenech hinted that he would probably be used sparingly.

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It is dreadful to die of thirst in the sea. Do you have to salt your truth so much that it can no longer even quench thirst?

As usual an inchoate mass of contradictory reports, conflicting rumours and desultory conjecture makes for a tempting but ultimately disorientating Sunday gossip round-up. Click to continue reading...

According to Sky Sports News, West Ham United are interested in Rennes defender Rod Fanni. Fanni's agent Dominique Six said,

"It's true that we have spoken to West Ham scout Roger Cross who has asked about information on Rod .

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Two friendlies coming up Nigeria on June 2 and Turkey on June 5. Here's the list of players. What do you think?

The big surprise is that Florent Malouda got the call, perhaps showing that Raymond Domenech can look past personal feuds to actual current form?

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The Sun goes a little way towards redeeming itself We don't know too much about the wonderfully hermaphroditically-named Rennes defender Rod Fanni, so we can't vouch for whether he is any good. But we do know that he is constantly linked with moves to British clubs. Unfortunately, we are unsure whether this is because he is [. Click to continue reading...

It is obvious that Premier League became The Promised Land for French players. Football academies that have been built by French FA in the early 90's became real talent farms. A lot of excellent players earned some experience by playing in French Ligue 1 and after a season or two flew over The English Channel to fight with the best players in the World. Click to continue reading...

First things first, the last few weeks have been very hectic in my "real life" because I've fallen behind in my research, and as a doctoral student, my adviser is not happy with me, which is why I've had to take a vacation from the soccer blogosphere. So you can imagine my disappointment that despite missing two games and nearly two weeks into the January transfer window, nothing remotely interesting has happened at Lyon.

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I don't know why I'm surprised by these Raymond Domenech decisions anymore.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not surprised by these Raymond Domenech decisions anymore.

Raymond lost a DM, a center/leftback, and a rightback this week to injury Lassana Diarra, Julien Escudé and Bakary Sagna.

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