Le Havre: Le Non-Preview

By: Martha | August 8th, 2008

Sorry for the semi-absence this week, I’ve been traveling and have only now settled in once place (for a while), so there sadly won’t be a proper preview for the Le Havre match. Instead, I can offer you some links, will that do? What if I pledge real previews in the future? Excellent.

•Both Coulibaly and Apam started and played all 90 minutes in their Olympic matches yesterday. Ivory Coast ran Argentina raged but lost 2-1 on a late goal, while Nigeria drew 0-0 with the Dutch.

•Fooball365.fr released a preseason poll of football journalists today, all of whom were asked to pick the top three and bottom three, and explain their choices. Three of them picked Nice to go down for obvious, ZOMG SO MANY PEOPLE ARE GONE! reasons. Hopefully we’ll look back on this and laugh.

•Official numbers — no one’s taken over Baky’s shirt, but Traore’s been assigned Ederson’s #10, Fae’s got Balmont’s #14, Ospina’s got the #1 shirt, and poor, unloved Matt Moussilou will get nothing and like it!

•A recent official site interview with Letizi, who praises Ospina and tries to temper his habitual positivity with a bit of caution about the season ahead. Good man.

•Totally unsurprising squad list for tomorrow. I’ve read that Hognan definitely will not play, but since he’s on the team sheet it looks like there’s at least a little optimism he could be fit by game time. Fingers crossed, everyone.

•New Antonetti interview, in which he cautions against taking preseason results to heart, laments the financial situation that makes that elusive New Attacker difficult to land, and shows some love for his 4-3-3.

•On the topic of the new attacker, Nice are still after Dindane, apparently, and talks are either underway with Lens or they’ve broken down after Nice’s offer was rejected. As usual, the truth is anyone’s guess, but at the very least it sounds like they’re still trying to find someone. Even someone with only one good leg.

If anyone somehow manages to watch the match tomorrow, please share your impressions in the comments. Assuming God doesn’t come down in person (in deity) and demand a stream, I won’t see it beyond highlights until the official site gets it uploaded (which usually takes a couple days), so the full match report won’t come until then.