FRANCE’S YOUNG TYROS

If a lot of very famous players will miss the Euro 2008, numerous young talented players will and are very likely to star during the competition. Most of them are linked to moves in the biggest European clubs or already play in these teams, most of them are around 20 or a little more and most of them will surprise the spectators who don’t really know them for the moment.

Three of France’s biggest hopes for the Euro 2008 are Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri and Hatem Ben Arfa who led the French team to the Under 17 Euro title in in 2005 and who have been starring in the French Ligue 1 for three years.

Karim Benzema has scored 20 goals in Ligue 1 this season finishing as top goal-scorer. He has also starred in the French cup with six goals in five games and in the Champions League with four goals in seven games. He is already a key element of the French team scoring his first goal in only 8 minutes after he came on.

He dribbles well and is very quick. Many French people think he should be picked ahead of Nicolas Anelka or Thierry Henry. He may well move in the summer for a reported £50 million. Barcelona want him to replace Samuel Eto’o, Manchester United have already gone public on their desire to sign up. Juventus and Chelsea are also waiting in the wings although Lyons are trying to keep him with a new contract which makes him the best paid player in France on €6million a year.

Marseille’s Samir Nasri, at just 20, is another wonderful player. Arsenal have been following the player for a long time and have already made an offer. He is a midfielder who inevitably is drawing comparisons with Zinedine Zidane with whom he shares the same origins and place on the pitch. Like Zidane, Nasri has a good quality of pass and dribble and can unnerve defenses. He also scores important goals. In fact all his goals have been decisive including the one that secured a Champions League spot next year against Strasbourg on the last day of the season. And he has scored for France securing the 1-0 victory over Georgia.

The third French big hope is Lyon’s midfielder Hatem Ben Arfa. He is perhaps less consistent than the first two but he has a great potential: technically, he is as good as Cristiano Ronaldo and Ricardo Quaresma and has a style quite similar to the two Portuguese midfields. He enjoys dribbling and provoking the adverse backs and has the potential to become one of the most complete and spectacular players of the world.

Compared to the first two, he has been a late developer but scored in his first national appearance a goal for his first game and at the end of the season he has been awarded the title of best hope of the French Ligue 1. Lyon’s fans have welcomed him as a more than capable replacement for former idol Florent Malouda who left for Chelsea but he seems to have fallen out with Lyon coach Alain Perrin. But he is not short of options one being to Marseille where president Pape Diouf has always claimed how impressed he is by the young French midfield and dreams of attracting him on the Canebière to replace Samir Nasri or to gather two new diamonds of the French football. But Arsenal French coach who knows better than anyone else the talent of Ben Arfa is also trying to sign both Nasri and Ben Arfa to create a midfield with Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott.

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