Soccer World Cup 2010 / France

This article covers the French national team at the 2010 World Cup .

qualification

France faced the following opponents in Europe Group 7 :

rank	team	Gates	Points
1	Serbia	22: 08	22nd
2	France	18: 09	21st
3	Austria	14:15	14th
4th	Lithuania	10:11	12
5	Romania	12:18	12
6th	Faroe Islands	05:20	04th

France	-	Serbia	2: 1 and 1: 1
France	-	Austria	3: 1 and 1: 3
France	-	Lithuania	1-0 and 1-0
France	-	Romania	1: 1 and 2: 2
France	-	Faroe Islands	5-0 and 1-0

As runners-up in the group, the Bleus then had to play two barrage games in order to qualify for the World Cup finals. They won the first leg in Dublin 1-0 against Ireland and four days later they achieved an arduous 1-1 draw at home in the Stade de France , which was also helped by an irregular equalizer.

France's 20 goals were scored by André-Pierre Gignac , Thierry Henry (4 each), Nicolas Anelka , Franck Ribéry (3 each), Karim Benzema , William Gallas (2 each), Yoann Gourcuff and Sidney Govou (1 each).

Regardless of the successful qualification, the person of the trainer Raymond Domenech was in the focus of public criticism for almost the entire year 2009. Even within the national association FFF , the question of early termination of the contract was the subject of two votes (October and December), in which a very clear majority was in favor of the Sélectionneur . That did not prevent the FFF President Jean-Pierre Escalettes from commenting on possible candidates and the date of the announcement of the Domenech successor (“in any case, I hope at least before the start of the World Cup”) in January 2010 . In fact, in mid-May 2010, the association and current employer of Laurent Blanc had already agreed on the terms of a change of the coach from Girondins Bordeaux to the chair Domenech after the World Cup finals: for a transfer fee of around € 1.5 million, the Blanc club dismissed but then left his signature time prematurely from his contract.

French contingent

According to Article 26 of the FIFA World Cup , the national coach had to "at least 30 days before the opening game of the final tournament ... a provisional list of [maximum] 30 players" and by June 1, the final list of 23 players (including three goalkeepers ) Submit. Up until one day before France's first preliminary round match, it was able to replace players who - certified by the FIFA Sports Medicine Committee - had injured themselves so seriously that they were unable to participate in the final round.

Domenech, who also attached great importance to astrology in his professional function , announced his preliminary 30 roster on the evening of May 11, 2010. However, he only wanted to take 24 of them (including the "uncertain candidate" William Gallas because of a protracted injury ) to Tignes for the first preparation from May 18th to 25th ; he published this circle on May 17th. The six eliminated players were goalkeeper Landreau and field players Fanni , Rami , M'Vila , Ben Arfa and Briand ; in Tignes Lassana Diarra then had to pass due to an injury.

From May 27th to 30th, the squad completed another training camp in Sousse, Tunisia . Then the players and coaches flew to La Réunion and on June 5th to South Africa. Before the start of the final round, test matches against Costa Rica (May 26, 2-1 win), Tunisia (May 30, 1: 1) and China (June 4, 0: 1) were played. In these encounters, Domenech changed the game system to a 4-3-3 and almost unchanged the following initial formation - however, both measures were only moderately successful:

Lloris
Sagna Gallas Abidal Evra Toulalan Gourcuff Malouda Govou Anelka Ribéry000000
0000
0000

No.	Surname	Association (a)	Internationals (goals) (b)0	birthday	WM- Col. (C)	Gates
goal
23	Cédric Carrasso (d)	Girondins Bordeaux	00	12/30/1981	0	0	0	0	0
1	Hugo Lloris	Olympique Lyon	11	December 26, 1986	3	0	0	0	0
16	Steve Mandanda	Olympique Marseille	13	March 28, 01985	0	0	0	0	0
Defense
3	Eric Abidal	FC Barcelona (SPA)	48	11. 07.1979	2	0	1	0	0
22nd	Gaël Clichy	Arsenal FC (ENG)	04th	June 26, 01985	1	0	0	0	0
13	Patrice Evra	Manchester United (ENG)	30th	15. 05.1981	2	0	1	0	0
5	William Gallas	Arsenal FC (ENG)	81 (5)	17. 08.1977	3	0	0	0	0
6th	Marc Planus	Girondins Bordeaux	01	07. 03.1982	0	0	0	0	0
4th	Anthony Réveillère	Olympique Lyon	06th	11/10/1979	0	0	0	0	0
2	Bacary Sagna	Arsenal FC (ENG)	20th	14. 02.1983	3	0	0	0	0
17th	Sébastien Squillaci	Sevilla FC (SPA)	20th	11. 08.1980	1	0	0	0	0
midfield
19th	Abou Diaby	Arsenal FC (ENG)	05	11. 05.1986	3	0	1	0	0
18th	Alou Diarra	Girondins Bordeaux	25th	15. 07.1981	1	0	0	0	0
8th	Yoann Gourcuff	Girondins Bordeaux	20 (1)	11. 07.1986	2	0	0	0	1
15th	Florent Malouda	Chelsea FC (ENG)	54 (3)	June 13, 01980	3	1	0	0	0
7th	Franck Ribery	Bayern Munich (DEU)	45 (7)	07th 04.1983	3	0	1	0	0
14th	Jérémy Toulalan	Olympique Lyon	34	10. 09.1983	2	0	2	0	0
attack
21st	Nicolas Anelka (e)	Chelsea FC (ENG)	67 (14)	14. 03.1979	2	0	0	0	0
9	Djibril Cissé	Panathinaikos Athens (GRI)	39 (9)	12. 08.1981	1	0	0	0	0
11	André-Pierre Gignac	Toulouse FC	13 (4)	0December 5, 1985	3	0	0	0	0
10	Sidney Govou	Olympique Lyon	46 (10)	27. 07.1979	3	0	0	0	0
12	Thierry Henry	FC Barcelona (SPA)	121 (51)	17. 08.1977	2	0	0	0	0
20th	Mathieu Valbuena	Olympique Marseille	02 (1)	September 28, 01984	1	0	0	0	0
Trainer
	Raymond Domenech		76 (f)	24. 01.1952
	Pierre Mankowski	assistant		011/5/1951
	Bruno Martini	Goalkeeping coach		25. 01.1962

^(a) indicated is the last club the player played for during the 2009/10 season

^(b)A international matches (international goals in brackets) before the start of the tournament; As of June 4, 2010

^(c)Appearances during the World Cup finals; As of June 22, 2010

^(d)injured himself after the first group game in training; the later nominated Stéphane Ruffier ( AS Monaco ) arrived immediately, but was not accredited by FIFA

^(e) was excluded from the World Cup team after the second group game for disciplinary reasons

^(f) as a trainer

Quarters in South Africa

For the duration of the preliminary round, the Bleus have moved into quarters in the Pezula Resort , an extremely exclusive, very spacious 5-star hotel complex near Knysna , which, due to its location in a large nature reserve ( Knysna Forest ) on the Indian Ocean, is also known as the "South African Saint- Tropez "is called. The French State Secretary Rama Yade , who is responsible for sport, publicly criticized this choice of district as "indecent", referring to the financial crisis.

Games at the World Cup finals

Preliminary round

rank	country	Gates	Points
1	Uruguay	4-0	7th
2	Mexico	3: 2	4th
3	South Africa	3: 5	4th
4th	France	1: 4	1

In the preliminary round group A the following matches took place:

• On June 11, 2010, 8:30 p.m. CEST ( Cape Town , Cape Town Stadium , 64,100 spectators) against Uruguay 0: 0

The Bleus played with Lloris; Sagna, Gallas, Abidal, Evra (C); Toulalan, Gourcuff (75th Malouda), Diaby; Govou (85th Gignac), Anelka (72nd Henry), Ribéry

• On June 17, 2010, 8.30 p.m. CEST ( Polokwane , Peter Mokaba Stadium ) against Mexico 0: 2 (0: 0)

Lloris; Sagna, Gallas, Abidal, Evra (C); Toulalan, Diaby, Govou (69th Valbuena), Ribéry, Malouda; Anelka (46th Gignac)

• On June 22, 2010, 4:00 p.m. CEST ( Bloemfontein , Free State Stadium ) against South Africa 1: 2 (0: 2)

Lloris; Sagna, Gallas, Squillaci, Clichy; Diarra (C) (82nd Govou), Gourcuff, Diaby; Gignac (46th Malouda), Cissé (55th Henry), Ribéry

The Bleus had already played against all three opponents of the preliminary round there at previous World Cup finals: against Uruguay in 1966 and 2002 , against Mexico in 1930 , 1954 and 1966 and against South Africa in 1998 . The overall international match record before this tournament against Uruguay was negative (1 win, 2 draws, 2 defeats), against Mexico (5 wins, 1 draw) and South Africa (2 wins, 1 draw) positive.

Internal quarrels

See the main article in the Knysna Fiasco

In the half-time break of the game against Mexico, the player Anelka insulted the coach Domenech violently and was then replaced. When this became public, the association responded by excluding Anelka from the squad. In protest against the announcement and the expulsion, the team then refused to practice before the last group game. For this encounter, Domenech renounced Evra, Toulalan and Anelka, who were seen as ringleaders of the players' strike, while Abidal renounced himself.

Immediately afterwards, voices were heard calling for the resignation of FFF President Jean-Pierre Escalettes . Sports minister Roselyne Bachelot intervened and spoke of a moral disaster for French football.

Remarks

1. ^ Report on NZZ Online from November 19, 2009
2. ↑ Article from France Football online from December 18, 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ see France Football about Escalettes' favorites for the Domenech successor  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Article from France Football ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated May 29, 2010  
5. ↑ Article in France Football ( Memento des original from May 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated May 20, 2010  
6. ↑ The “Regulations 2010 FIFA World Cup ™” can be downloaded here as a PDF.
7. ↑ see in connection with this squad most recently "Les bonnes étoiles de Domenech" in France Football of June 1, 2010, p. 26
8. ↑ List of 30 at the FFF
9. ↑ List of 24 on the FFF website
10. ↑ after this page of the FFF
11. ↑ Article ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from France Football online  
12. ↑ Statement by Yades ( Memento of the original of June 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at France Football online  

Web links

• The national team on the side of the French association FFF (French)
• Squad France