L’Equipe in France has just reported to Real Madrid’s Lassana Diarra will not be making the trip to South Africa after ‘suffering from stomach pains’, according the the French National Team. Lassana, who was a shoe-in as a starter in the central midfield, will now be staying on the sidelines.
FFF President Jean-Pierre Escalettes said after hearing the news, ““It’s a big blow to the French team, but especially for him,” according to L’Equipe. “ Lassana is a player I like a lot. He could have had an enormous value to the team of France by his mental foolproof. This is dramatic that he will miss the World Cup.”
sWith the loss of Diarra, the team is now ‘officially’ a team of 23 players. Still, it is unknown if they will look for a replacement for Diarra or keep the current 23 that they have. Hint…Moussa Sissoko!!!
Ligue 1 Talk 
Moussa Sissoko why not ?
but i really want Mathieu Flamini he was would prefect even Bruno cheyrou
Early word is that they are just going to keep the 23 that they have. So we will see if there is anything else that happens.
Since Diarra is leaving before June 1st, they have to replace him – if they do – with a player who was originally in the 30. Had it happened after the 1st of June, then they could have chosen anyone.
So now the options are :
– go for the natural replacement and call M’Vila.
– Assume Gourcuff can play in Diarra’s position, that Toulalan will NOT play central defense since Gallas is getting healthy (still doubts though) and have Ribéry play central attacking midfielder. Apparently he’s been hinting at that in practice. That means he can call an extra forward, like Ben Arfa.
– Remain as is : but that means lots of central defenders. If he does this, it means that there will still be doubts about Gallas.
Yeah, I think that M’Vila is easily the best choice to replace Diarra.
What are you saying about Gallas, that they wouldn’t play him? True, he might not be the best when it comes to his FNT play, but I figure they would still keep him.
Gallas might just not be in game form by June… And Domenech doesn’t want to take the risk of playing him against Costa Rica so he doesn’t relapse. Maybe it’ll be the same thing against China, so then you have the question : how do you get in match form if you can’t play matches because you’re too scared of getting injured?
Tough situation, which may warrant keeping an extra defender in case it turns out Gallas can’t play before the round of 16 or whatever. Gourcuff can fill in for Diarra, and then we still have Diaby and A. Diarra.
Who do you call in for the extra defender? Fanni? Escude? Mexes (though I really haven’t seen him play this year)?
the only extra defender is going to be called for gallas is Adil Rami hes on stay by…….as for me i would love to see Mexes play
ps M’Vila is pretty good play hes the only rennes player i even like lol
With France switching to a 4-3-3 system with just one defensive midfielder, the chances of bring in another guy look slim at this stage. M’Vila, what would be the point? Gourcuff could slot back into that role anyway if it comes down to it. M’Vila should have never gotten into the enlarged squad, that should have been Cheyrou, Pedretti or Mavuba. I guess Domenech wasn’t really expecting this to happen but still, including M’Vila was wrong.