New France coach Laurent Blanc, who has previously expressed displeasure with the way French players behaved at South Africa 2010, could exclude all 23 World Cup players from the squad he calls up for Les Blues August 11 friendly with Norway.
Laurent Blanc Ready To Exclude All French World Cup Players From August Friendly
According to France Football (English report), Blanc, intent to bring order to the team, could exclude all the players involved in the protest that led a training session to be cancelled in the lead-up to France's final match. The protest was born out of the French Federation's sending-home of Nicolas Anelka, who had launched a profanity-filled tirade toward coach Raymond Domenech at halftime of France's loss to Mexico.
Blanc, hired as Domenech’s successor before the World Cup , will make his international coaching debut in Oslo, having left his position as coach of Ligue 1 side Bordeaux to take up the national team’s job.
Were Blanc to move forward with plans to exclude the World Cup squad, the following players would fail to get call-ups for the August 11 match:
- Goalkeepers: Cédric Carrasso, Hugo Lloris, Steve Mandanda
- Defenders: Éric Abidal, Gaël Clichy, Patrick Evra, William Gallas, Marc Planus, Anthony Réveillère, Sébastien Squillaci
- Midfielders: Abu Diaby, Alou Diarra, Yoann Gourcuff, Florent Malouda, Franck Ríbery, Jérémy Toulalan, Mathieu Valbuena
- Forwards: Nicolas Anelka, Djibril Cissé, André-Pierre Gignac, Sidney Govou, Thierry Henry
Thierry Henry has already announced his international retirement.
France will go into the Norway match having slipped 21 spots in the FIFA World Rankings in the wake of their disappointing World Cup performance, where they finished last in Group A, having earned only one point from three matches.
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