Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
France Manager Didier Deschamps has named the hosts squad for EURO 2016 and it has a very English feel with there being no fewer than 10 Premier League players in the squad. It was always going to be a hotly contested squad with Deschamps having a raft of talent at his disposal but in fairness there aren’t a great deal of surprises in the final 23.
N’Golo Kante is rewarded for his Leicester efforts while Dimitri Payet is named as one of the six attacking players in Deschamps squad. The France Manager will no doubt be hoping that Oliver Giroud finds his shooting boots between now and the start of the tournament. He may have scored last Sunday away at Manchester City but it’s been a poor 2016 for the Arsenal Forward.
There’s no room in the squad for Hatem Ben Arfa after an impressive season for Nice he has to make do with a spot on the back up list along side Manchester United’s Morgan Schneiderlin. There’s not even that for Mathieu Valbuena who has been caught up in the blackmail scandal alongside Karim Benzema they both miss out on playing for France on home soil this Summer.
France go into the tournament as one of the favourites and on the basis of that squad you can understand why. Below is the full squad
Goalkeepers: Hugo Lloris (Tottenham), Steve Mandanda (Marseille), Benoit Costil (Rennes)
Defenders: Raphael Varane (Real Madrid), Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal), Eliaquim Mangala (Manchester City), Jeremy Mathieu (Barcelona), Patrice Evra (Juventus), Bacary Sagna (Manchester City), Christophe Jallet (Lyon), Lucas Digne (Roma)
Midfielders: Paul Pogba (Juventus), Blaise Matuidi (PSG), Lassana Diarra (Marseille), N’Golo Kante (Leicester), Yohan Cabaye (Crystal Palace), Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle)
Attackers: Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid), Dimitri Payet (West Ham), Anthony Martial (Manchester United), Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich), Olivier Giroud (Arsenal), Andre-Pierre Gignac (Tigres)
