00-01 Eric Roy Match Worn Shirt
Image: Sunderland shirts

Despite the tone of recent pieces, there IS still something good to say about French football. Needless to say, there’s a strong Sunderland connection here …

Salut! Sunderland has hit upon an obvious choice of team to support in the French top-flight Ligue 1 that kicks off a week on Saturday. It did no harm to Paraguay in the World Cup, backed by this site in honour of their Sunderland players (Paulo da Sila and Cristian Riveros) and red and white stripes. And now we hope our cheerful allegiance to the Olympique Gymnaste club de Nice will bring even more sunshine to the Mediterranean coast than it already enjoys.

Think back to a cold Saturday afternoon in Sunderland. Dec 4 1999. Not a bit like the Cote d’Azur.
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Laurent Blanc’s first move as manager of the French national team was a serious statement of intent. The entire 23-man squad who represented the country so poorly in South Africa would be dropped for the next match. That’s every single player, even the ones who didn’t get a chance to set foot on the pitch during the disastrous campaign …

Now it could be said that everyone was as bad as each other, that no one disembarked the coach to train on that dark day in French football history. Yet the claim could also be made that a player such as Mathieu Valbuena, young and barely capped, is highly unlikely to go against the status quo as Messrs Evra, Ribery, Henry and Cisse sat with sullen faces and folded arms in their childish protest at Nicolas Anelka’s dismissal from the national squad.
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