French bizarreness

It's been a weird week for the French squad. Some of the weirdness was unintentional, but some has been self-inflicted.

Earlier this week, Patrick Vieira was gassed by burglars who were robbing his house in the Cote d'Azur. Apparently, the thieves managed to pump gas into the house to keep the Vieira family sleeping while they took valuables. Best wishes to Vieira and his wife and daughter as they recover from the attack.

And today, the French squad hiked on an Alpine glacier as a team-bonding exercise. Apparently, coach Raymond Domenech thought the difficult hike, in which players were roped together, would be a good way to generate team spirit, but it seems to me like a good way to get your entire squad wiped out by an avalanche. Fortunately, nothing like that happened, but surprise!--one of the players picked up a calf injury in the hike. The good news for France is that it was just Fabien Barthez who got hurt; maybe they'll be forced to actually start a real keeper against Switzerland.

UPDATE: More nuttiness! Backup keeper Gregory Coupet just stormed out of camp briefly. Reason unknown... you'd think he'd be happy Barthez hurt his calf. Hmm... you think maybe Coupet tried to push him off the glacier or something? Awesome!