By Myles Palmer
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France 0 Senegal 1
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Diop 30
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Coach Roger Lemerre must move Thuram to centreback and
bring Willy Sagnol in at right back.
France won’t retain the World Cup with Barthez and Leboeuf in the side.You can’t drop Barthez, you gave to live with him.
Most of this game was predictable.
Except this : Lizarazu was France’s best player.
And if Lizarazu is your best player, something has gone badly wrong.
Senegal were up for it because it was their World Cup Final.
They had never played France before and never played in the World Cup before.
Right back Coly was exceptional and keeper Sylva has great hands and comes boldly out of his box, as we saw in the African Cup of Nations in February.
Senegal have more than enthusiasm.They have disciplined
enthusiasm and that can stifle any opponent.
Their appetite devoured the whole midfield and they gobbled up most of France’s long balls .
Everyone wanted to play, and everyone wanted to work, and they had the collective flair and purpose and bite we first saw in Mali.That was all predictable.
Any team that can take Cameroon to extra time and penalties is OK with me.
Sure, France had five chances, enough to win the game. I thought Trezeguet would score when Henry gave him a
half-decent pass, but he hit the post.
Trezeguet headed wide off a Thuram cross. He was screaming for a tap-in late on when Henry shot from a silly angle.
Sub Dugarry headed Vieira’s diagonal pass on to Henry and hislob hit the bar.
Everyone knew Henry would head wide from three yards when
Wiltord’s cross reached him.
The man with the Golden Boot, the Nike contract, the Coca Cola contract, the house in Hampstead,the Clio contract, can’t put a header on target from three yards. We expected the miss, even if we didn’t think he would head it THAT far wide.
What did I think of France overall?
I thought they played like Juventus when they should have been playing more like like Arsenal.
By that I mean : like Juventus after Zidane was sold.
Juve this season.Energetic, aggressive, plenty of thirty yard balls into space, somewhat predictable, but able to force a win in most games, able to apply the precentages.
Unfortunately, you can’t play like Arsenal if you don’t have Pires and Ljungberg.
Of course France missed the cunning of Zidane, but his stand-in Djorkaeff was NOT the problem
The problem was that the off-the-ballplay of Henry and Wiltord was shabby.
Senegal defended cleverly and with a good shape, and caught France offside.
But Senegal would not have caught Ljungberg offside. In that game he would have made three runs and scored one goal and it would have been a draw.
But Freddies don’t grow in trees.
Djorkaeff has an eye for a pass, but he needed somebody who had an eye for a well-timed run.
That was the first major problem in Lemerre’s team.
The second was that Petit and Vieira duplicated each other.
Realising this, late on, Patrick got forward for a header and a shot which was blocked.
As soon as Diop scored I said :”Vieira will equalise against his motherland! What a great story!” But it did not happen.
There will be many postmortems in coming days, many
explanations, many excuses.
Myself, I did NOT think France were arrogant or complacent in the way they played.
The team was just unbalanced, too predictable, didn’t have enough ideas, enough flair, enough craft.
Senegal looked as coherent as a good club team, while France were as sketchy as a dress rehearsal.
As I say, Djorkaeff-Ljungberg would be great together because Djorkaeff is a half-striker like Bergkamp.
He can play killer passes. But you cannot play killer passes to guys who always want the ball to feet
John, my gambling greengrocer, had £50 on Senegal to win at 9/1 and £50 to draw at 9/2.
John said that three weeks ago Senegal were 20/1 to finish top African nation.
He also said that after Diop scored you could still get 3/1
AGAINST them beating France !
IRELAND V v CAMEROON ?
Cameroon should annihilate the Irish.
Steve Staunton at centreback against zippy Samuel Eto-o and
powerful Patrick Mboma ?
In USA 94 poor blond Staunton flaked out in the blazing heat in Orlando, Florida, where he looked like a man walking the Sahara desert.
Staunton was in a trance. He saw an oasis. He saw a horizon in the haze. He saw sand and, beyond that, more sand, and more sand. As the ball came towards him he saw three balls and didn’t know which one to kick.He was seeing three balls.
He didn’t need a referee, he needed a paramedic. He was almost dead on his feet. If they made animals suffer that much there would be questions in the Commons.
Eight years later Staunton is playing centreback against the best team in Africa on a humid, hot Japanese afternoon? With beanpole Gary Breen alongside him?
The Republic of Ireland plan to take on the world with Staunton and Breen at centreback?
Tonight on TV I saw the Irish having fun with young Japanese fans.
Damien Duff was signing autographs. Robbie Keane was having
a game of head tennis with a boy who was about twelve, if that.Robbie was laughing and looked as if he was really enjoying it.
Those two are fiery, positive strikers with bottle. Duff can dribble and shoot, Keane can bend his runs to stay onside.
What would Roger Lemerre give to have those two in his team to play Uruguay?
That’s what France need right now : Damien Duff and Robbie
Keane.
31st May 2002.