France announce the team for next Euro round

Domenech announced yesterday the players he will be retaining for the next two matches against Lithuania and the Faroe Islands. A few surprises, but overall the usual suspects:

La sélection :
Gardiens :
Sébastien Frey, Mickaël Landreau, Ulrich Ramé

Défenseurs :
Eric Abidal, Julien Escudé, Patrice Evra, William Gallas, Philippe Mexès, Bakary Sagna, Lilian Thuram

Milieux de terrain :
Abou Diaby, Lassana Diarra, Mathieu Flamini, Claude Makelele, Jérôme Rothen, Jérémy Toulalan

Attaquants :
Nicolas Anelka, Karim Benzema, Sidney Govou, Thierry Henry, Florent Malouda, Franck Ribéry, Louis Saha


So here is my major beef, and I might sound like a broken record....but why is Trezegol not on the list? Domenech cannot use the "well he plays in Serie B" as an excuse anymore, Juventus is back in Serie A....and doing very well. He cannot use that Trezeguet is not showing results - he leads Serie A with 7 goals already. So what bullsh*t does Domenech us for not selecting the striker? "Because there is lots of competitors for the forward role..." huh? what? Lots of competition? Isn't that always the case for any half decent footballing nation?

So rather than taking one of France's leading scorers he decides that wants to instead include Manchester United's just back to the pitch striker - Saha. He has a whopping 2 goals for ManU this season, obviously far better than Trezegol's 7. And not that he would ever do this, but Henry has not been lighting it up in Spain...but he is the Teflon player.

What really surprises me, once again, is Domenech's short sightedness. He must realize that France are playing two weaker teams. Granted, if France cannot defeat the Faroe Islands without Trezeguet they do not deserve to go to the Euro. However, Lithuania demonstrated in the first game how they are going to approach Les Bleus - pack in the defense, defend the 18 yard box with 9 defenders. The perfect situation for a player that is a "fox of the box" a player that can also score from crosses and high balls. Not Saha, Henry, Ribery, or Malouda's strengths. What is really surprising to me is that in selecting Rothen, Domench has a player capable of launching clinical crosses into the box...would be nice to have someone that can do something with those crosses.

Finally, I think that this non selection is poor "people management" on the part of Domenech. His handling of Trezegeut has been nothing short of abysmal. He selects him, puts him on the bench, makes him play B' team games, starts him, and then does not select him for no good reason. Is Trezeguet to blame for the goalless two games the French suffered versus Italy and Scotland...no. Last time I checked Henry was not lighting up the world at the San Siro. Last time I checked France did not beat Scotland as a team, not because of Trezegol.

Domenech is on the hot seat, he has to get three positive results over the next 3 games...and hope for some help. I think having the Turin striker as an option would make this task much easier....but I fear that if it comes does to getting a result in Ukraine and Trezegol some how has a role in a poor result, Domenech will have his whipping boy....not what this world class striker deserves.