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junodog4

Future Grumpy Old Man

Gender: Male

Location: Calgary

Entertaining EPL season, despite West Ham's awfulness... Congrats to Man City. Too bad, Liverpool, but it was nice to see them up at the top again. Big offseason for ManU.
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Finnegan was super bad-ass.

Patman360

Serenity Now

Gender: Male

Age: 33

Location: Cork, Ireland

Moderator

Manchester United bid £27 million for Luke Shaw, they're not wasting time this summer then...
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Antonio-Pedro

Subspace Highway Traveler

Gender: Male

Age: 25

Location: Rain forest Kingdom

junodog4 wrote:

Too bad, Liverpool, but it was nice to see them up at the top again.

I didn't see the full season (just the second part probably) but what I saw from Liverpool was very surprising, a great quality soccer that Liverpool wasn't playing for a long time. Hope they go well on the next Champions league.
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Top 100 Hits you must hear before the u... of beauty

Norman Bates

Gender: Male

Age: 52

Location: Paris, France

Didier Deschamps announced the 23 players chosen to defend the Blue, the White and the Red in Brazil. Go France!

Keepers: Lloris (Tottenham) / Mandanda (Marseilles) / Landreau (Bastia)

Defenders: Varane (Real Madrid) / Sakho (Liverpool) / Debuchy (Newcastle) / Koscielny (Arsenal) / Digne (Paris S.-G.) / Mangala (Porto) / Sagna (Arsenal) / Evra (Manchester Utd.)

Midfield: Cabaye (Paris S.-G.) / Pogba (Juventus) / Matuidi (Paris S.-G.) / Sissoko (Newcastle) / Grenier (Lyons) / Rio Mavuba (Lille) / Valbuena (Marseilles)

Attackers: Benzema (Real Madrid) / Ribéry (Bayern Munich) / Griezmann (Real Sociedad) / Giroud (Arsenal) / Rémy (Newcastle)

In case of injury, Deschamps has asked 7 players to be ready to replace somebody at any given time. Those players are:

Cabella (Attacking midfield, Montpellier) / Gonalons (Defending midfield, Lyons) / Lacazette (Attacker, Lyons) / Perrin (Central defender, Saint-Etienne) / Ruffier (Keeper, Saint-Etienne) / Schneiderlin (Midfield, Southampton) / Trémoulinas (Defender, Saint-Etienne)

Pretty much what everybody expected (although I though Deschamps was going to select Lacazette instead of Rémy. Taking Rio Mavuba is purely instrumental to the group's atmosphere, as he hasn't had the best of seasons. Good lad though. Looks good, but considering the difficulties we've had in the past years, I wouldn't feel too confident. Oh, and bye-bye Nasri (and Abidal) and Clichy.

The probable starting 11 (if nobody's injured):

Lloris
Debuchy (or Sagna) - Koscielny - Varane - Evra
Matuidi - Cabaye
Valbuena - Pogba - Ribéry
Benzema

That's OK on paper.

Skinny

birdman_handrub.gif

Norman Bates wrote:

That's OK on paper.

Certainly better than England.

EDIT: And I know he has a reputation for being l'enfant terrible, but Nasri has had a stunning season and I'm absolutely astounded he isn't in the squad. He's been one of the best players in the Premier League this season, popping up with important goals and generally looking his focused best. I'd certainly pick him in France's starting eleven ahead of Valbuena, easily.

Norman Bates

Gender: Male

Age: 52

Location: Paris, France

Skinny wrote:

And I know he has a reputation for being l'enfant terrible, but Nasri has had a stunning season and I'm absolutely astounded he isn't in the squad. He's been one of the best players in the Premier League this season, popping up with important goals and generally looking his focused best. I'd certainly pick him in France's starting eleven ahead of Valbuena, easily.

Nobody's questioning that Nasri's better than Valbuena, and he has had an excellent season. He's out mainly on accounts of bad behaviour, even when he was "allowed" a comeback for the qualifying games vs. the Ukraine, during which:
1) he was terrible in the away game (but so was everybody);
2) he apparently didn't have the "right" attitude when he wasn't allowed a starting spot in the return game, whereas the players on the field did the job. Plus Valbuena, who's had a terribly average season with Marseilles, has always been good with the national team and is more or less the team's totem animal.

Shame. Extremely talented player, Nasri, probably the best France has in terms of keeping the ball when need is, and capable of making the right pass.

ross93

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Norman Bates wrote:

Didier Deschamps announced the 23 players chosen to defend the Blue, the White and the Red in Brazil. Go France!

Keepers: Lloris (Tottenham) / Mandanda (Marseilles) / Landreau (Bastia)

Defenders: Varane (Real Madrid) / Sakho (Liverpool) / Debuchy (Newcastle) / Koscielny (Arsenal) / Digne (Paris S.-G.) / Mangala (Porto) / Sagna (Arsenal) / Evra (Manchester Utd.)

Midfield: Cabaye (Paris S.-G.) / Pogba (Juventus) / Matuidi (Paris S.-G.) / Sissoko (Newcastle) / Grenier (Lyons) / Rio Mavuba (Lille) / Valbuena (Marseilles)

Attackers: Benzema (Real Madrid) / Ribéry (Bayern Munich) / Griezmann (Real Sociedad) / Giroud (Arsenal) / Rémy (Newcastle)

In case of injury, Deschamps has asked 7 players to be ready to replace somebody at any given time. Those players are:

Cabella (Attacking midfield, Montpellier) / Gonalons (Defending midfield, Lyons) / Lacazette (Attacker, Lyons) / Perrin (Central defender, Saint-Etienne) / Ruffier (Keeper, Saint-Etienne) / Schneiderlin (Midfield, Southampton) / Trémoulinas (Defender, Saint-Etienne)

Pretty much what everybody expected (although I though Deschamps was going to select Lacazette instead of Rémy. Taking Rio Mavuba is purely instrumental to the group's atmosphere, as he hasn't had the best of seasons. Good lad though. Looks good, but considering the difficulties we've had in the past years, I wouldn't feel too confident. Oh, and bye-bye Nasri (and Abidal) and Clichy.

The probable starting 11 (if nobody's injured):

Lloris
Debuchy (or Sagna) - Koscielny - Varane - Evra
Matuidi - Cabaye
Valbuena - Pogba - Ribéry
Benzema

That's OK on paper.

Wow, surprised at the emission of Nasri, he's had a fantastic season at man city. France has a good squad, I can see them reaching the quarters

Patman360

Serenity Now

Gender: Male

Age: 33

Location: Cork, Ireland

Moderator

So Tevez didn't make the provisional Argentina squad and Di Santo who scored 4 goals this season did...
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Norman Bates

Gender: Male

Age: 52

Location: Paris, France

Let's hope they don't take all the character players out and that we're not in for a sanitized world cup.

Norman Bates

Gender: Male

Age: 52

Location: Paris, France

This is what Deschamps had to say about Nasri:

Didier Deschamps wrote:

«Il l'a dit lui même, il n'aime pas être remplaçant, et je peux vous dire, ça se voit (...) On est parti sur une aventure qui va durer 6 semaines au minimum. Vivre ensemble sur une aussi longue période demande des qualités humaines.»

"He said it himself, he doesn't like being a substitute, and I can tell you, it shows. We're embarking on an adventure that is going to last for a minimum 6 weeks. Living together over such a long period of time requires human qualities".