Word: bleus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...much as the French love fashion, soccer took precedence last week in Paris. Even at the fall 2006 haute couture fashion shows, talk inevitably turned to Zinédine Zidane, or "Zizou," France's World Cup star. Some editors went so far as to sport les bleus--the team's cobalt blue jerseys--in his honor...
...side that, irrespective of form, can conjure at least once per tournament a performance so impossibly good that there is no way of stopping them. Just such a display sent the All Blacks crashing out of the Cup four years ago and no one will play les Bleus this time without memories of that upset flickering in their minds. Open rugby is the only rugby the French know. "Attack is one of the things you can't control," says their coach, Bernard Laporte. "It belongs to the irrational." Defending champions Australia are the only country to have...
...French business titan Jean-Marie Messier been a footballer, he might not be suffering disgrace and joblessness today. Last month, after France's World Cup humiliation, President Jacques Chirac advised disgruntled fans against turning on their beloved Bleus - warning "we mustn't burn today what we considered beautiful yesterday." Messier wasn't so lucky. Though once regarded as a national hero for turning a sleepy French water company into the world's second-largest media group, Vivendi Universal, Messier saw his corporate reign come to an ignoble end last week as the stock market and the French media, business...
...French went so far in trying to outthink Senegal, Uruguay and Denmark, that they outthought themselves. Their three first-round games were almost identical. Les Bleus dominated the midfield, stringing together long sequences of complex passes that would look impossible even on a coach's drawing board. These were designed to draw opposition defenders and create spaces for David Trezeguet, the French spearhead, to slip through. When the other side refused to come out and play, the French fell into their own trap: their defenders stepped up to help the midfielders, leaving behind huge gaps. Uruguay was unable to make...
...twice as much as their rivals. The gospel of possession football, preached by coaches everywhere, promises victory to the side that keeps the ball the longest. But this only works when the opposition actually wants the ball. Against France, the Danes didn't: they were happy to let Les Bleus play around for as long as they wanted. And the team that won the "Group of Death," Sweden, had less than 50% possession in each of its first-round games. It isn't about how long you have the ball, but what you do when you have...