LES BLEUS TAKE on the Swiss in Curitiba.
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Switzerland 2-5 France
Good evening folks! After Costa Rica’s historic win over Italy in the early game, out attention shifts to Group E where Switzerland and France clash.
The two European sides sit level on three points after respective victories against Honduras and Ecuador.
Here are the team line-ups:
Switzerland: Benaglio, Lichtsteiner, Von Bergen, Inler, Seferovic, Xhaka, Behrami, Rodriguez, Mehmedi, Djourou, Shaqiri.
France: Lloris , Debuchy, Evra, Varane, Sakho, Cabaye, Valbuena, Giroud, Benzema, Matuidi, Sissoko.
What way do you see this one going? Give us your predictions to the game.
Poll Results:
Karim Benzema is still floating around 8/1 or 9/1 for top goal-scorer, depending on your favoured dropping well. His goal to make it 3-0 the other night was pretty sweet:
Senderos on the bench with the Swiss Charlie O’Leary:
Good news anthem fans, the PA system is working and both teams are in fine voice.
KICK OFF
1 min - ‘We’re in a feeling out period’ remarks Ray Houghton on commentary duty.
3 mins - Heavy touch from the recalled Giroud as a France attack peeters out. I’m sticking with that spelling of ‘peeters’ by the way.
5 mins - Odd that Benzema is bunked out onto the left wing after his double the other night. The Real Madrid striker cuts inside, however, and curls an effort just wide.
6 mins - Stoppage in play as Giroud, competing for a high ball, kicks Steve von Bergen in the cheek/eye socket. Looks nasty.
12 mins - France making all the running so far. Cabaye aims for Saturn with a long range drives and nearly connects.
GOAL!! Switzerland 0-2 France (Blaise Matuidi ’17)
Another! Blaise Matuidi rocks in another from a narrow angle after Behrami gifts France possession.
Here’s the first goal:
20 mins - Karim Benzema very nearly makes it 3-0 but heads over from six yards out.
This is the second goal:
26 mins - Swiss players in French box alert! Free-kick is whipped in after a whole minute of pushing and shoving. Goal…. but flagged offside.
28 mins - Shaqiri clatters into Cabaye in an act of Swiss aggression. Peter Collins gets excited as Giroud banana kicks an effort 10 yards over and 11 yards wide.
29 mins - Remember Packie Bonner’s parry to Schillaci? Hugo Lloris almost repeated the trick with a parry to the right but straight into the path of Shaqiri in the box. He makes up for it with a super fingertip save.
32 mins - Shades of Ian Harte/Kevin Kilbane at World Cup 2002 as Benzema misses his penalty, earned after going down under Djourou’s challenge, and Cabaye somehow crashes the rebound off the post from four yards out.
This is where Cabaye missed from:
36 mins - Giroud clattered in the tackle there but still in enough pieces to demand a free-kick.
GOAL! Switzerland 0-3 France (Valbuena ’40)
Break from the French box, four touches and in the back of the Swiss net! Giroud squares to Valbuena to roof home from inside the six yard box.
42 mins - France go close again and the Swiss are it tatters. Houghton mentions the dreaded ‘cricket score’. Hitzfeld made two changes at half-time in their opening game and it paid off. Can he repeat the trick to the power of three?
45 mins - The Swiss players are out on the pitch early after no doubt getting a good talking to at half-time. There appears to be no way back for them but stranger things have happened.
Valon Behrami has been taken off for Napoli club mate Blerim Dzemaili.
47 mins - Sakho times his challenge on Mehmedi perfectly to win the ball inside his own box. Moments later, Inler doesn’t trouble Lloris with a long-range strike.
52 mins - Shaqiri sets off on a run on the left flank but is taken out by Sissoko and earns a free-kick. The set piece is put behind for a corner by Matuidi but it comes to nothing.
60 mins - Good build-up play from France with Valbuena again involved before Benzema gets a shot off.
Great tackle.
Goalscorer Giroud is going off with Paul Pogba, who started the win over Honduras, coming on to play in midfield.
Sakho has picked up an injury and has been withdrawn with Laurent Koscielny of Arsenal making his introduction.
GOAL! Switzerland 0-4 France (Benzema ’67)
And there’s a fourth. A great move sees new man Pogba pick out Benzema with the outside of his boot and the Real Madrid striker finishes through the legs of Benaglio to make up for his penalty miss. Poor defending from Senderos.
71 mins - Rodriguez with the corner for Switzerland but the attempted header is off-target.
Then France break and Patrice Evra finds himself in the opposing box but shoots wide.
GOAL! Switzerland 0-5 France (Sissokho 73′)
This is getting embarrassing for the Swiss. The ball is switched from one side of the pitch to the other and Newcastle midfielder Sissokho arrives late to find the bottom corner.
Here are goals four and five. The way both sides are playing at the moment, we could have a couple more before the end.
GOAL! Switzerland 1-5 France (Dzemaili 80′)
Consolation for Switzerland, who win a free-kick a good 35 yards out and substitute Dzemaili manages to put it through the wall and past Lloris. Replays show Benzema lifting his leg to allow it past.
You had one job, wall…
Still cant get over what a joke these rankings are, using us as an example, we have managed to drop 60 places in 18 months which despite some poor results cannot be justified in such a short space of time, the reality is that we would beat the majority of the teams outside the top 30 and should be matching a lot of the teams outside the top 15 at least. Thankfully it has no bearings on our seedings for the euros , just saw we are guaranteed 2nd seeds in a group where the top 2 go through and 3rd go into the play offs
They are a bit sh!tty Nick, but should only ever be used as a guide.
I mean the absolute hack of some teams above us!
Let’s call a spade a spade here. The Irish national team is incredibly average. Go back through the past few generations of teams and we always had a “world class” or at least “top class” player in the team, Roy and Robbie Keane as examples. The current line up just doesn’t have that star player, and is a combination of very average players. I know we all have pride in the team and always think we deserve to be ranked higher than we usually are, but we need to be realistic. When the likes of Paul McShane was a regular member of the team, who himself is a magician to fool someone into paying him to play football, it says a lot.
I wont disagree that they are average and to be fair McShane has never been a regular for Ireland, he only ever tends to be a squaf player. But some of the teams ahead of us are beyond rubbish!
Ehh Nick we were not 7th in the world 18 months ago.
Simple Mistake @Sir Charles I did mean 17th
I’d rate us in or around 50th at the moment nick, to be honest. We recently finished 4th in our WC group, and there were 9 groups in Europe. So at best we are 28-36th best team in Europe (based on real competitive results over last 2 years). Likes of Austria for example can rightly claim at this point, to be a better side than us, they beat us only 3 months ago in fairness. If we agree we are around 30th in Europe, then we are also a poorer side than brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Columbia, chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela even… Add Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, and arguably Honduras and panama, in Africa we are behind Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, and very likely a few others we don’t know that much about. Japan, Korea, Iran, Australia, are all better sides than Ireland at the moment too. No doubt we are ranked a few places too low, but our results have been pathetic in the last 2 years. We are nowhere near the worlds top 30 on current form and nobody can argue otherwise. Have ye forgotten euro 2012? There were 15 decent- very good sides, and then Ireland, by far the weakest team in the comp. O’Neill has a big job to do I reckon.
How can we have a successful national team with such a unhealthy league, we’ve only ourselves to blame supporting Liverpool and co.
Sad really, in 2010-2011 season Irish supporters spent 145,000,000 on travelling to British stadia and that’s excluding merchandise. Imagine the potential for Irish clubs in europe if that money was spent at home.
Iran,Algeria,Honduras all better than Ireland? No.Just no.
Joe, as far as Euro 2012 goes just remember “You’re hardly gonna believe us. We’re just as bad as the Dutch!”
They are surely, but how much better are we? During the Trappatoni era one would fall asleep watching us, with a mundane and boring midfield and not picking the type of players that would actually have us playing football!
The rankings are a bit silly, and based on stats that don’t really reflect true standings, but they are what they are, and until we have Xavi McCarthy, Cristiano Murphy, Lionel O’Connor and the rest of the imaginary top class players, we will remain to be poor, unfortunately. I’d give anything for a new generation of Irish footballers to produce one or two top class players, what a difference it would make!!
Chances are Brian Ireland will probably never produce another generation of top class players to come along together such as Keane duff dunne given oshea all within a period of 3 years yes we will come across the odd player but the influx of players from asia Africa Europe and south America is hindering the development of young irish and British players where once it was irish boys being chased by premier league clubs they now look further afield in my opinion there should be some rule to stop clubs sourcing players from outside the British Isles until their over 18 this would force the clubs to develop their youth systems and scouting networks thus improving the quality of young players produced here
Ireland dropped 60 places in 18 months when were Ireland ranked 7th in the world nick
Ireland were ranked 6th in dec 1992 and aug1993
http://www.fifa.com/associations/association=irl/ranking/gender=m/
No comparison at all between the players we had then, compared to who we have now
Humbug FIFA (︺︹︺)