Just who isn't injured? Of the ten players out, seven of them are starting players. Defensively, Lyon are once again in a crisis. They are down to their last men in terms of defense. Besides academy kids, Lyon have no backups at all. If anything happens to the players that are left, Lyon will be screwed.

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After coming back from a two goal deficit to draw with Fiorentina in the Champions League, French giants Olympique Lyon won their weekend domestic fixture by beating Le Havre AC 1-0 at the Stade Jules Deschaseux. Lyon, who had Sidney Govou sent off in the second half, held on to their one goal lead, given [. Click to continue reading...

Ahhh, hopefully we can have a slight respite from the recent Franco-Italian war that has errupted in our comments section of the post-Lyon-Fiorentina CL match, and during the lull in hostilities, get back to enjoying some L1 action!

Saturday, Lyon travel to Le Stade Jules Deschaseaux in the the northwestern region of Haute-Normandie to take on one of this year's promoted clubs, Le Havre AC.

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Okay, let's look at the bright side.

Um...

I know there's something...

Oh, got one! Actually, more than one!

1) Jérémy Toulalan gets better every game, and is looking more attack-minded as well. He's becoming less wary about shooting from distance, which can knock defenses off guard a good thing, as our offense can be extremely predictable.

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Oh no! Sidney Govou is getting creative with his hair again. I thought that was just a phase. (I consider him wholly responsible for the Fabio Grosso hair debacle at the end of last season for Lyon.)

Here's what's going on with the game today. The game will be live at.

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Several players have been called up for international action next week. For many countries, this is the last opportunity to get things sorted before World Cup qualifiers start this fall.

France (vs. Sweden - 08/20/08): Hugo Lloris, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Jeremy Toulalan, Sidney Govou, Karim Benzema

Sweden (vs.

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Les Bleus will be traveling to Sweden for a friendly on August 20th, a game which will hopefully get the team ready for the World Cup qualifiers that will be starting soon.

There a lot of old faces on the squad, but there are also some players missing, including Franck Ribery and Francois Clerc, who are out injured, and Samir Nasri and Eric Abidal, who were dropped entirely.

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Although we've all been waiting for the eventual signing of The Rock, John Mensah -which should happen today, Monday- there are other smaller happenings in the Mercato. I apologize for the shortness of the piece, but transfer news is scant lately. I thought I'd throw in some tiny morcels of info to keep the stomach growling to a minimum for those of us who are genuine transfer news junkies, and for those of us who don't read French.

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Lyon had their first summer friendly this afternoon against Nimes in Albertville. Goals were scored by Juninho (10), Yannis Tafer (40), and Anthony Mounier (63). This was Claude Puel's first match in charge, and for many of the players, their first match in an OL jersey.

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Arsenal have signed 21-year-old French attacking midfielder Samir Nasri.

Now that Nasri's signed, and taken over the number 8 jersey, recently vacated by Lassana Diarra, Arsenal supporters want to know good he is.

Here's some video of Nasri playing.



Samir Nasri only played briefly for France at Euro 2008. Click to continue reading...

Nothing major to report on the transfer front. Most of the info from Inara's last transfer post is still up to date. Here's the latest:

OUT:

Gregory Coupet: Greg's transfer to Atletico Madrid has been finalized.

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The latest news from this week...Due to the amount of material covered, I didn't post links to the original sources like I normally do, but if you want them, let me know.

OUTGOING:

FRED: Is it just me, or does Fred spend an inordinate amount of time making life difficult for the rest of us?

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I've totally been avoiding writing about this because part of me still believes that it's only a nightmare...But man, out of the eleven OL players in Euro 2008, only one will be showing his face in the quarterfinals.

I have nine other identical pictures just like this.

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This morning, Lyon finally clinched the signature of Miralem Pjanic, who is the hottest talent in France not born in 1987. Lyon have been negotiating with Metz for weeks, but to so many clubs interested, many with late bids, the deal took quite a long time in being crafted.

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Since it's May 28 and all the Euro 2008 rosters have been finalized, let's take a look at Italy's biggest rivals from Group C. It may be called the "Group of Death", but I am talking of course about France. Coach Raymond Domenech had already made a "Pre-selection" list of 30 players some weeks ago, eventually cutting [. Click to continue reading...

Goals: Lyon (Govou 102)

More pictures after the jump.

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On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me...

3 French Number 10's

Arguably the most prestigous shirt number a player can wear has to be the number 10. With the French National team, however, there is no arguement - it's a fact.

According to Monsieur Platini, "The street is the best way to become a good footballer. Click to continue reading...