France

French Fancies: Stee…eeeeed’s near the top of the world

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Image: Addick-tedKevin

The Mag hordes have departed, taking with them the smug smiles we can but wish we had been wearing since 2pm on Saturday. On my own reckoning, there must have been 15,000 visits over the weekend from Newcastle supporters eager to gloat. And they didn’t even buy a mug between them! As for Sunderland, we now face an important week on the road, with effective performances a must at Brighton and Swansea. But first of all, let’s have another look at football across the Channel…

Three games into the French season, Steed Malbranque has finally had his first taste of Ligue 1 football since the move from Sunderland to St Etienne (might a touch of his creativity made a difference on Saturday?).

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French Fancies: Laurent Blanc, racial quotas and Lille’s shock for OM

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Supporters lillois lors de PSG 3-0 LilleImage: Psgmag.net


Our regular look at French football – illustrated by a photo borrowed from the PSGmag.net fan site – considers the racial quotas scandal – and comes clean on another dodgy prediction …

Lille football club – LOSC Lille Métropole if you must – are very nearly the Ligue 1 champions in France after winning 2-1 last night at Saint-Etienne (who else remembers when Dominique Rocheteau played for them?

It puts them seven points ahead of Marseille, who have a game in hand but a markedly inferior goal difference.

Only a remarkable collapse in their final three games, from which five points would suffice, would stop Lille winning the title for the first time since their previous championships on 1946 and 1954. As in 1946, they may also win the double, the Coupe de France final against PSG coming up on Saturday night.

And my apologies to Marseille for casting a curse on their title hopes for the second time in three seasons. On the morning OM blew their chances by crumbling at home to Lyon two seasons ago, I had a 2,000-word piece on the sports pages of The National, Abu Dhabi, dealing at length with their revival after 16 years in the doldrums. And only last week, when they briefly went top of Ligue 1, I predicted that they would go on to stay there. Oh well.

Meanwhile, the hot football news in France is the sports minister’s clear statement that Laurent Blanc, manager of the national side, was innocent of any improper behaviour in the affair of the racial quotas. For those new to the subject, the Q word was used by the French Football Federation technical director François Blaquart when a meeting of coaches last November discussed the issue of schoolboy hopefuls who were trained at FFF expense only to go on to represent the North or sub-Saharan African nations of their family origins.

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French Fancies: sing your heart out for a ban

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Here’s an adventure in fantasy football:

Imagine we’ve just beaten someone, not Newcastle but a team like Bolton or West Brom, in the League Cup final. Yes, that’s quite a leap of faith given how modestly we proceed in cup competition these days, but bear with me ….

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Ghana’s design guru: an Asamoah Gyan fashion statement (and goal)

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Back to action on Sunday – see our Manchester City preview by clicking here – but here’s a bit of light relief, including an amateur clip of the Gyan goal vs England, while we wait …

Best of all in Asamoah Gyan’s eulogy to the new top – and no, that’s not him wearing it – is the reference to next season, ie there being a next season (with us).

Darren Bent has taught us not to read too much into what players say about their love for the club, their happiness at feeling so appreciated by fans, their contentment in the area they’ve moved to …

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The pride of England, Ghana and Sunderland – and a dodgy French strip

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Asamoah by addick-tedKevin

… in which we praise the Sunderland men who graced the Wembley turf last night and introduce you to a new team strip to end arguments over our own …

Before anything else, Salut! Sunderland salutes all the SAFC players who represented their countries in the England v Ghana friendly last night. In particular, bravo Asamoah Gyan for an equaliser to cap what was, by all accounts, an excellent game and Danny Welbeck for making his first England appearance.

At this distance – M Salut is in France – you have to rely on the reports of others.

One Sunderland supporter with Wembley tickets wondered what the England fans in the family enclosure made of his celebration of Gyan’s goal. Another sent a celebratory e-mail: “Gerrin … more of that on Saturday please.”

A third, thinking also of a certain Mr Carroll, added: “Can’t say I’ve enjoyed an England goal less and cheered the opposition scoring more than tonight. Can we have that every week please Gyan!”

While all this was going on, our own Pete Sixsmith sent a text telling me Fraizer Campbell had also scored – on his return from injury in a 1-1 draw for the Reserves v WBA. There’ll be more on that, I imagine, from Pete himself a little later, but Campbell’s recovery and confidence-boosting goal can only be good for the club.

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Forget Spearing’s dive for Liverpool: Lyon’s cheat in a different class

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James Forrest & Dejan LovrenImage: Ronnie Macdonald (Lovren, right, practises ballet skills in Lyon v Celtic, Emirates Cup)

No complaints about today’s result. Whatever justified grievances we have with the match officials, Liverpool deserved to win and we deserved nowt. And, in the latest from our French Fancies series about football on the other side of the Channel, we identify a much nastier example of the ugly face of football …

In one way Jay Spearing is not a cheat at all. But then nor, in one way, was Gary McAllister. Both were indeed fouled by Sunderland players, so falling over was not an impossible consequence.

Their status as cheats is judged on what happened next. The fouls occurred outside the penalty area and the fouled players proceeded to float though the air (McAllister) or run and plunge (Spearing) to land well inside the box.

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French football: Marseille come clean as Brandao accused of rape

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In Salut! Sunderland‘s French Fancies series, we take a look at a display of candour of a type rarely encountered in the English game …


It seems almost unimaginable in the Premier League.

A player is suspected of forcing his sexual attentions on a woman in a motorway service area. Far from clamming up behind an absurd wall of “none of your business” silence, the club’s chairman talks openly about his exasperation with the player’s general conduct.

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Villa’s Gérard Houllier: faites entrer l’accusé

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GuillotineAmnesty International

Bring in the defendant, indeed. Gérard Houllier stands accused, in his own imagination, of the heinous crime of being French. Everyone else has all but forgotten Darren Bent. Just a bad dream. But M Houllier, with whatever encouragement he derives from the auld alliance (his Scottish sidekick, l’ancien superplongeur Gary McAllister), cannot let go. The Villa boss has discovered why he’s had such flak. You guessed it, and so did our mysterious chroniqueur, Birflatt Boy: it’s just our way of re-opening the 100 years’ War …

He thinks it’s because he’s French! Houllier that is!

He’s a funny bloke Gérard Houllier isn’t he? He received widespread benevolence during his time at Anfield. Everyone looked at him as if he was a favourite uncle.

In no time at all since his arrival at Villa Park he has become something of a public menace. His antics in the transfer market have made him look like a complete prat.

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French fancies: not so Nice for Eric Roy

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Before we get hopelessly bogged down with pre-derby coverage, Monsieur Salut gets up early to update events in France …

After an uplifting victory over St Etienne, who are doing well in the French Ligue 1 for the first time in years, the team every Sunderland supporter should keep a soft spot for – Nice, managed by Eric Roy – resumed their mini-slide.

A 1-0 defeat in Lens was the disappointing result from Nice’s weekend (and heaven knows how they got back from the grim north to the sunny Med with all those fuel blockades). So the Lads/les Mecs slip to 13th (our finishing position last season) when victory would have taken them to seventh (where we are now).

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