The international season will be kicking off this month. Of course Les Bleus will not be playing any qualifiers, but the European Cup is about 15 months away. That time will go by fast and DD will be expected to have his squad ready for the tournament they are hosting - will anything short of a semi final appearance be acceptable??
The list DD called up looks very familiar with some new faces and some questionable choices:
Lloris, Mandanda, Ruffier – Evra, Jallet, Koscielny, Sagna, Sakho,
Trémoulinas, Varane, Zouma – Gonalons, Kondogbia, Matuidi, Payet,
Schneiderlin, Sissoko – Benzema, Fekir, Giroud, Griezmann, Lacazette,
Valbuena
The fresh new face is that of Fekir from Lyon. The attacking midfielder is having a break out season with his club, with double digit goals (11) and 7 assists. He was long time a target for the Algerian national team but made the decision to throw his future behind Les Bleus. He did play at the U21 level with France. The player offers DD some new blood for his attacking midfield. With the retirement of Ribery and the exile of Nasri coupled with France's consistently lacking right side, it will be interesting how the new player get integrated and leveraged.
Many of the other names are the usual suspects that DD has been leaning on. The one player that continues to make me scratch my head - Evra. The Juventus left back continues to be called up. But is he truly the future for the left back role? It is good to see Tremoulinas being in the squad. But what about Kurzawa? I am not sure that Evra is our solution at left back for the Euros. I realize he hasn't retired from international play, but that does not mean DD needs to continue to call him up.
It will be interesting to see how DD handles his back line. With Sakho starting to do better at the club level, will the central pairing be changed again? It is also good to see Kondogbia back on the roster. Clearly his play for AS Monaco has not gone unnoticed. Let us see how DD runs his formation.
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