From: dvlkhh@cs.umu.se
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: WC qualifier: France vs Finland
Date: 16 Nov 1992 18:42:14 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

OK, yesterday it seems to have gone lost, so here it is again.

    WC 1994 Qualifier, European group 6
    The 14th of November 1992
    at Parc des Princes, Paris

         FRANCE              2         FINLAND             1
           Papin '19                     Jaervinen '54
           Cantona '32
         Att.: 30000

         Referee: Marko (Czechoslovakia)

                                   LINE-UPS:

    France:   Martini;
              Roche;
              Durand (Karembeu '71), Boli, Casoni, Lizarazu;
              Deschamps, Sauzee;
              Cantona, Papin, Gravelaine (Vahirua '78).

    Finland:  Laukanen;
              Ukkonen;
              Holmgren, Kanerva, Paetejae (Kinnunen '85);
              Litmanen, Hjelm, Myyry, Jaervinen, Paatelainen 
                (P. Tauriainen '22);
              Tarkkio.

    ARGH! Eurosport made an American-TV style change and didn't broadcast
the scheduled live match and showed instead some awful boxing followed by 
motorcycling. Does anyone knows why on earth they did this stupid thing?!?
Oh well, I went to my shortwave radio and left me partents watching the
crap in hope that they would show something later on (later, I saw in the paper
that the listings were changed as weell, what  jerks!). 
    Anyway, the match started with France controlling the play without
creating chances. On 18 minutes a Sauzee shot hit the post and Ukkonen cleared
to corner. The corner was well taken and hit the head of Papin and Les Bleus 
were in front. Bixente Lizarazu, our onw Liza, was seet up for a good
shot which was excellently saved by Kari Laukanen. Minutes later, the
goalie saved a Alain Roche header on a Franck Sauzee freekick. Canto made
it finally 2-0 when he recovered a ball which the Finnish keeper failed to 
clear. The first half was all France and they should have killed the game,
they had another chance early on in the second half with another Sauzee shot 
just outside the post. Then, the visitors scored on their first real attack
with Markku Myyry crossing for Pettri Jaervinen to score. Afterwards,
the French players looked out of the match, nothing worked and Finland had
most of the ball, but hadn't many 100% chances luckily. The two substitutions
made it a little bit better and the end of the match saw the ball flooding from 
end to end with half-chances at both goals. Personally, I think Houillier 
should have brought on some fresh blood earlier.
    Conclusions: What do I have to say? Well, overall Les Belus deserved
to win even if the display were very poor (still they dominated the first hour,
that's more than lucky Sweden did in Helsinki). But, still there is much
more we want to see, the player exists, you (Houillier) just have to put
it out of them. He has much work to do if Sweden and Bulgaria should
be chalenged.
    Bixente Lizarazu had a solid debut and should stay in the starting eleven.
Didier Deschamps had a good first half as distributor of the ball, but faded
away like the rest of the players in the second half. Xavier Gravelaine wasn't
at all as good as against Austria and should maybe have been subbed earlier.
Christian Karembeu, they young Canary, will probably be in the squad for next
match (or maybe Sassus is back, then). The defence looked very shaky, 
Alain Roche is in my opinion still the first choice as libero (Sauzee didn't
impress me against Austria and haven't played the role enough to play it
on the international level and Laurent Blanc hasn't retrieved his confidence
after the lost season in Napoli, yet). I tend to agree that David Ginola 
should get another cap to see if he can do better than he did last (when he 
failed to give an impression). I also want to see Emmanuel Petit back in the 
line-up (when he has recovered from the injury fully) and I'm not really sure 
that Casoni should stay in the squad. 
    Finland was not as good as against Sweden when they deserved at least a 
draw, I think they started a bit too defensively.

    Next match is Israel-Bulgaria, hopefully the Israeli do well!
    (2nd of December)

    France next match is in Tel Aviv in February.


Group six standings:

              G  W  D  L  F-A  Pts
SWEDEN        3  3  0  0  6-1  6
BULGARIA      3  2  0  1  5-2  4
FRANCE        3  2  0  1  4-3  4
AUSTRIA       2  1  0  1  5-4  2
ISRAEL        2  0  0  2  3-8  0
FINLAND       3  0  0  3  1-6  0

Kent...
-- 
+---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
| Kent Hedlundh             | Les Girondins pour une place Europeene en 1993! |
| Dept. of Computer Science | France and Sweden for the WC'94!                |
| University of Umea        | All the best for my friends teams!              |
| S-90187 UMEA     SWEDEN   | E-Mail: dvlkhh@cs.umu.se     IP: 130.239.96.17  |
+---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
               "It's always good to talk soccer!" - Marco Petroni
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer