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Les Bleus await squad decision

Sat 17 May, 01:45 PM


France coach Raymond Domenech will call on a group of 29 players on Sunday when he names his provisional squad for Euro 2008.The end-of-season fixture schedule has not helped Domenech as he looks to settle on the party of 23 he will take to the June tournament in Austria and Switzerland.

There are a host of Les Bleus players taking part in three finals over the next week - the Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea on Wednesday, the Coupe de France final between Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain next Saturday and the Coppa Italia final between Inter Milan and Roma on the same day.

Domenech will therefore name an enlarged provisional group on Sunday, which he will then trim by six later in the month after any potential injuries are taken into account.

Domenech said back in March he already had in mind 20 of the 23 players he was going to choose.

Gregory Coupet, Mickael Landreau and Sebastien Frey will be his final choices for the three goalkeepers and the three out-and-out strikers should be Thierry Henry, Karim Benzema and Nicolas Anelka.

So it is in defence and midfield where the conundrums lie.

Willy Sagnol will be the first-choice right-back but it looks to be a battle between Bacary Sagna and Francois Clerc to be the Bayern Munich veteran's understudy.

At centre-back, Julien Escude, Philippe Mexes and Sebastien Squillaci are competing to be the back-ups to Lilian Thuram and William Gallas, while Eric Abidal and Patrice Evra are shoo-ins at left-back.

Domenech will probably have to decide between Hatem Ben Arfa and Jerome Rothen for the second left-wing slot behind Florent Malouda.

And there is plenty of competition for the remaining places in the centre of midfield.

Claude Makelele, captain Patrick Vieira and Jeremy Toulalan will be there but there is also likely to be room for two of Lassana Diarra, Mathieu Bodmer, Abou Diaby, Samir Nasri, Alou Diarra and Mathieu Flamini.

Franck Ribery and Sidney Govou will be the two right-wingers.

Les Bleus have three friendly matches against South American opposition in the fortnight before the Euros start on June 7.

They play Ecuador in Grenoble on May 27 and then Paraguay in Toulouse on May 31.

Their third warm-up match is against Paraguay in Paris on June 3.

France's opening group game at the Euros is against Romania on June 9.

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