|
|
Other News |
Lemerre hopes French first team will come back refreshed |
|
News |
|
|
June 24, 2000
IJMUIDEN, Netherlands (AP) - France believes that at the end of a grueling season, France's fresh limbs can overcome Spain's high spirits at Euro 2000.
The Spanish are on a high having scored two injury-time goals to beat Yugoslavia 4-3 and seal a place in the quarterfinals.
While Jose Antonio Camacho's players were going through the full range of emotions on Wednesday most of the French players were being rested ahead of Sunday's showdown.
Assured of advancing before its 3-2 defeat against the Netherlands, France fielded only one first-team regular, Marcel Desailly, in Amsterdam.
The world champion hopes that will mean it has extra bags of energy in Bruges.
"Spain didn't get the chance to rotate its team and that is something to take into consideration," said Bordeaux's Christophe Dugarry, who scored against the Netherlands but will probably end back on the substitute's bench against Spain.
Dugarry and France know how fatigue can undermine an in-form team at the European Championships.
Under Aime Jacquet, France went into Euro 96 with an unbeaten run stretching back more than two and a half years.
But the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Bixente Lizarazu and Dugarry, who had all played more than 50 games for Bordeaux that season, looked weary in England.
Jacquet's team didn't lost a match, but goalless draws in the quarterfinals and semifinals, when France went out to the Czech Republic of penalties, attested to a side that was talented but searching for inspiration.
French coach Roger Lemerre, whose side would need to play its final four games in 13 days to win the tournament, doesn't want the same thing to happen this time.
Most first-team players saw their last action against the Czech Republic on June 16, giving them eight days off.
By losing against the Netherlands, France faces a tougher looking team - Spain rather than Yugoslavia - but Lemerre makes no apologies for resting his first team in Amsterdam.
Didier Deschamps, Thierry Henry, Lilian Thuram and Lizarazu are among the players that will benefit most after a long, full season at club level. And even though he was sidelined for four months this season with a knee injury, Zidane will also appreciate eight days off.
"People are saying that Spain is growing in power and we can ask ourselves if their team is going to be galvanized by the way it qualified at the last moment," Lemerre said.
"Will that erase fatigue in the competition and allow them to find the form shown by clubs like Real Madrid and Valencia who reached the final of the Champions League?" he asked. "All we know is that it is absolutely essential for our 22 players to be in the best physical condition as possible."
Lemerre was ultra-cautious against the Dutch.
He not only rested players like Emmanuel Petit, who has a strained ligament in his right knee, and Thuram, who was on a yellow card, but also goalkeeper Fabien Barthez.
"We needed to protect players like Barthez and Thuram. Not individually but protect them for the group," he said.
Lemerre's experiment might help him pick a side to face Spain.
"If (Petit) doesn't play, now we have other visible solutions," he said. "I didn't just throw the team together and they performed very well."
Asked whether France will have much of a physical advantage Patrick Vieira, who has a chance of starting against Spain after a tenacious performance against Edgar Davids in midfield, was cautious.
"Perhaps," he said. "But at this level it is more mental than physical." |