Valbuena and four others called up…

By: Magnusson | March 20th, 2008

After the humiliations of the past week, a few Marseillais received some good news this afternoon. Steve Mandanda, Gaël Givet, Samir Nasri, Mathieu Valbuena and Djibril Cissé have been called up in the French National team to play for either the A Team against England or the A’ Team against Mali. We’ll see which players are affected to which squad but it would seem normal that all of them (Samir Nasri excluded) would be called up for the Mali confrontation.
It is a great achievement for Valbuena and Mandanda who were both relative unknows at the beginning of the season (even though Mandanda seems to be the natural heir of Greg Coupet once the Euro is done). Gaël Givet is being rewarded for coming back to his best level after six tough months. So is Djibril Cissé who has a spot in Raymond Domenech’s heart, we know that. As for Samir Nasri, despite being a little less popular these days because of his erratic behavior lately, It’s always nice to see that Raymond wants to give him the keys at some point.
Mathieu Valbuena will complete the list of five newbies that are called up for the first time, Matthieu Delpierre, Mathieu Bodmer (I never made it a secret that this guy was one of my favorite players of the Ligue 1. He’s definitly my favorite Lyonnais, just because I still believe he could play for us. I stopped dreaming of Benzema last year), Adil Rami (he plays for Lille, Julien knows him) and Florent Sinama-Pongolle (waw, this is a surprise. This guy palys for Recreativo Huelva and we pick him while OPeter Luccin is one of the best midfielders in Spain and still ain’t called). Valbuena’s best friend Rio Mavuba’s move to Lille was obviously a good choice for the man who said himself that his move was a mistake. They’ve known each other since they were 9 years old and hopefully for the both of them, they’ll play in the french National team together next week. Either one of them.
All in all, Uncle Ray ray called 39 players:

Keepers: Grégory Coupet (Lyon), Mickaël Landreau (Paris SG), Sébastien Frey (Fiorentina/ITA), Steve Mandanda (Olympique de Marseille)

Defenders: Eric Abidal (FC Barcelona/SPA), Jean-Alain Boumsong (Lyon), Gaël Clichy (Arsenal/ENG), François Clerc (Lyon), Matthieu Delpierre (Stuttgart/GER), Julien Escudé (FC Séville/SPA), Patrice Evra (Manchester United/ENG), Willam Gallas (Arsenal/ENG), Gaël Givet (Marseille), Philippe Mexès (AS Rome/ITA), Adil Rami (Lille), Bakary Sagna (Arsenal/ANG), Sébastien Squillaci (Lyon), Lilian Thuram (FC Barcelone/ESP)

Midfielders: Mathieu Bodmer (Lyon), Alou Diarra (Bordeaux), Lassana Diarra (Portsmouth/ANG), Mathieu Flamini (Arsenal/ANG), Claude Makelele (Chelsea/ANG), Rio Mavuba (Lille), Samir Nasri (Marseille), Jérémy Toulalan (Lyon), Jérôme Rothen (Paris SG), Patrick Vieira (Inter Milan/ITA)

Strikers: Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea/ENG), Hatem Ben Arfa (Lyon), Karim Benzema (Lyon), Jimmy Briand (Rennes), Djibril Cissé (Marseille), Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona/SPA), Florent Malouda (Chelsea/ENG), Sidney Govou (Lyon), Franck Ribéry (Bayern Munich/GER), Florent Sinama-Pongolle (Recreativo Huelva/SPA), Mathieu Valbuena (Marseille)