France-Italy, Spain-Iceland

The current French team presents a problem for me. I love France, a beautiful country with extraordinary culture, society and cuisine. I have close relatives who live there. And France has produced some fantastic players over the last decade: Zidane of course, but also Thuram, Vieira, Ribery, Djorkaeff, Henry, etc. etc. I even liked Stephane Guivarch'h.

But I find the current French team incredibly frustrating to watch and it's mainly down to coach Raymond Domenech. They play with two defensive midfielders, usually only one committed forward, and outside backs who are very conservative in gettnig forward. The attacking players that they do have--such as Henry, Ribery, Nasri and Malouda--are so good that they often offset this philosophy. But nonetheless the philosophy is still there.

At least yesterday there was a good reason for it: they came to get a draw in Italy, and they got it. With ease. The problem is that they always play that way. I wish that Domenech would give Vieira a little more license to get forward, and get the outside backs into attack more frequently.

So yes, the big match yesterday was all a bit drab. Is it me or is the Italian attack looking very old all of a sudden.

I actually used to live in Iceland, so I was very excited to see them get the result in Reykjavik, although it's a shame about that tying goal. (In fact, I saw my first soccer game at that stadium: NY Cosmos vs Valur in the early 80s) With Northern Ireland losing in Latvia, it shouldn't make much difference to Spain; as long as they can stay within two points of them before their final match against the Irish in Spain, they're going to be favored to go through.

For Italy, it's more tricky. I think they have to win in the Ukraine.

I'm not dead yet

So... um... yes. A five weeks or so without a single post. It was one of those things where for a while there wasn't much going on in the international soccer offseason, and then just as it got interesting, I got extremely busy.

In any case, it's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm looking forward to a nice slate of Euro qualifiers. As usual, there's the frustrating situation where the match I really have an emotional investment in--England vs Israel--is on US pay per view, and I'm hesitant to shell out the 25 dollars to watch Second Choice Steve (moniker crudely swiped from the Guardian) scrape out a dull draw. And as usual, FSC has managed to broadcast the mostly uninteresting games. But I'll be watching Italy-France on GOL TV today, which should be an excellent rematch. With Scotland matching them step for step so far, there's a very real risk one of these marquee countries won't make it to the 2008 championships, so there's every incentive for both teams to go for the win. If you're lucky enough to live in a Portuguese-speaking area of the US and get RTPi, you can also see Portugal-Poland. Portugal have a game in hand over the group leaders Poland, but if the Poles get a win today, the Portuguese will be in major trouble. I'll also see if sentimental faves Iceland can pull off an upset and get points from Spain.

So sit back, grab a favorite beverage, prepare to teach the offside rule to some member of your household... AGAIN, and enjoy.