Gary Linton was busy again scanning Europe for France’s best talents and he was spoilt for choice with this week’s continental action. He tells French Football Weekly who has been impressing him lately.
As most will know this weekend in Spain was El Clasico, that means fighting, goals, great football but most importantly French footballers, three in fact. First up was Karim Benzema who made history at the weekend scoring the fastest ever Clasico goal in just 22 seconds! He made a fantastic start, straight from the kick off, a mistake was made by Víctor Valdés who scuffed the ball towards Ángel di María whose through ball was cleared by the Barcelona defence but fell straight to Mesut Özil who saw his shot take a deflection and, in mid-air, Benzema caught the ball on the volley to hit the back of the net. Just the start Real Madrid had dreamt off. He did well enough after that in the match, winning 100% of his aerial duals and with the little amount of possession Real had he did well in the stuff he was involved in.
Another French player for Real Madrid in the Clasico was little Lassana Diarra who was deployed in the defensive midfield role. Taking away the the fact he missed a tackle on Lionel Messi which led to the first goal for Barcelona which wasn’t really his fault as Alonso should have been the man to tackle Messi (plus the fact that it is Lionel Messi), he did very well. By the time he got taken off he’d won the most tackles on the park and it was possibly a smart move taking him off right after he picked up his yellow card given his tendency to lose his cool. However, moments after he got substituted Barcelona went on to score the third of the match to kill the tie.
The third Frenchman in the match was Eric Abidal, not a Ballon d’or performance from the left back but a solid one. Minus the goal within the first seconds of the match, the Barcelona defence, himself included, did very well over the course of the 90 minutes in the backyard of their rivals. One thing I did notice is in the biggest game of football three of the twenty-two that were on the field were Frenchmen.
The other team in Barcelona are Espanyol and at the weekend they were also up against a Madrid team, this time Atlético Madrid. In the match there was a Frenchman in the mix young Thievy Bifouma who has previously been included in the French under 20 side and has been a regular in the line-up for Espanyol this season and played again at the weekend. He didn’t manage to get on the score sheet in the 4-2 win for the home side but was always about and in the middle of most things. He has a bright future no doubt, having impressed greatly in his first full senior season.
Moving away from Spain for a moment, and over to the Bundesliga. Franck Ribéry from Bayern Munich was on show and even though he started off by not getting too involved, as the game went on he came into it. His overall passing accuracy at the time of his substitution in the 80th minute had him second best on the park at 92% along with three shots and two dribbles complete had an overall good game. It was always going to be a tricky tie on the road against Stuttgart, they’ll be happy with the three points in the end.
Moving lastly over to Italy and in Serie A Lazio moved up to second in the league table thanks to their win over Lecce, which finished 3-2. The match was influenced by two Frenchmen and first up was Mobido Diakité who, when Lazio were one nil down, managed to get on the end of a corner and his resulting header was met by Klose who put the sides level.
The other was a half time substitute that goes by the name of Djibril Cissé, who helped Lazio win and claim all three points. The scores were level in the dying minutes of the game when Cissé collected the ball on the corner of the box, took one look up and planted it right on top of Klose’s head to nod home the third and win it for the Rome side.