L’équipe de France boasts several reknown names: Ribéry, Benzema, Nasri, and others.
Come meet the French squad of the Euro 2012, ahead of the crucial game coming up tomorrow: France vs. Ukraine!
First, meet le gardien de but (the goalkeeper) as well as le capitaine since almost two years now: Hugo Lloris. Nicknamed “Saint Lloris” by his aficionados, he currently plays for one of the best French teams of la Ligue 1, l’Olympique Lyonnais. As a youngster, Hugo had a special gift for tennis, but then his passion for le football became too irresistible, so he dropped the former sport for the latter. He made his début in the club of his hometown, Nice, and surprised many when he chose to snub AC Milan in favor of Lyon.
Who said that if you once play offense, you can never play as a défenseur afterwards? Well, Evra, a Senegal-born player who has been playing for six years in Manchester United is a case in point.
In France, Evra is still remembered as the initiator of the infamous mutiny which broke during the
2010 World Cup in South Africa, when several French players refused to train due to an argument with
l’entraîneur (the coach.)
- Défenseur: Laurent KOSCIELNY:
Born in Tulle, the same place where French President François Hollande was elected mayor for seven years, Laurent Koscielny played for several French teams, before landing in Premiere League English team Arsenal FC.
The little French commune of Tulle claims yet another connection to Football, albeit an odd one: In the aftermath of the so-called “Generals’ Putsch“, namely the 1961 botched mutiny led by four French Generals against him, le Général De Gaule was famously rumored to have referred to them as “those idiotic generals playing ball in Tulle Prison.”
The football-loving Generals cooled their heels in the Tulle jail for some years.
Put in comparison, Evra, the leader of the 2010 World Cup mutiny which earned les Bleus an early exit from South Africa, practically got away “scot free.”
À Suivre (To be Continued)
Comments:
Andrew:
vive les bleus
Lisa Orland:
Hollande did even worse than France in the Euro, at least the French went to the second stage and lost to champion Spain so it’s not so bad!