You don’t lose veterans such as Zinedine Zidane, Marcel Desailly and Lilian Thuram and just pretend nothing happened.
Rebuilding and helping less-experienced replacements find their groove takes time. The trouble is, time is one thing France doesn’t have.
After just one 2006 World Cup qualifying match, France must look for victory against the lowly Faeroe Islands on Wednesday to get their campaign back on track. Normally, the mighty French should eat their semi-professional opponents for breakfast. But new-look France are not firing on all cylinders at the moment.
Confirming the decline of the former world and European champions, Les Bleus were held to a scoreless draw by modest Israel on Saturday. That left the French, who were playing at home, two points adrift of Switzerland and Ireland, the European qualifying group-four leaders after their respective wins over the Faeroe Islands and Cyprus.
Hesitant, uncoordinated and unlucky, France could not put away their chances against a dogged Israeli defence. Zidane’s absence loomed large. A ”Zizou we miss you” banner in the stands of the Stade de France, the site of the French triumph in the 1998 World Cup, spoke volumes.
”There are now new players who need to get over some hurdles. You never reach a very high level in an instant,” Thierry Henry told sports daily L’Equipe the next day. ”What counts is creating a team. You have to rediscover a soul.”
How long will it take for relative newcomers Sebastien Squillaci, Gael Givet, Bernard Mendy or Patrice Evra to gel? How long does new coach Raymond Domenech need to fill the vacuum left by Zidane, Desailly, Thuram and Bixente Lizarazu, veterans who took 409 caps with them when they retired from the squad after Euro 2004?
”It will take two years. So far, we’ve had two weeks,” he said.
”We must come down a level. The France team is no longer the world or European champion. We can no longer go out onto the pitch with that same thought.”
Up front, veteran Henry and Manchester United’s Louis Saha have yet to combine effectively. But Henry, so effective for Arsenal, says time will iron out the team’s wrinkles.
”It can’t just come like that. In your club, you get two months to adapt. Here, it’s 10 days. But the more days we have together to refine what the coach is asking, the more beneficial it will be. We have to recreate automatic reflexes.”
A goal bonanza away to the Faeroe Islands, who succumbed 6-0 away to the Swiss, could do marvels for French confidence.
Playing France ”will be tough, really tough but we will do our best”, said Henrik Larsen, a former Danish international turned coach for the 18-island archipelago between Scotland and Iceland.
The news that Zidane was not traveling to Torshavn, the Faeroese capital, was ”of course sad because he is a great soccer player. But France has so many strong players that they could line up three very strong teams if they wanted,” Larsen said.
”My men train four times a week after work while the French have a team of pros training seven days a week,” he added. ”We don’t have the physical strength they have but we have the eagerness to show our best.” — Sapa-AP