holydogg wrote:Only the fact France is in top16 is a HUGE achievement. Not bad for a nation of fromage and soccer lover
You forget the wine
Very important here! Probably as important as hockey in Canada!
More seriously, France had already been in the group A during nearly all the 90's, under the Philippe Bozon era, and even made it to the 1/4 Finals of the Olympics of 1992. The renewal of the troops wasn't good enough to keep the team into the group A, was relegated, and missed some Olympics. The actual generation is better. They missed the Olympics in 2006 for just one goal, and now brought back the team in the group A. So that's not really a so huge achievement. We're just back to our level, as a weak group A team that fights against relegation every year and succeeds in it every year. Now we need to have more players in the various european leagues of a higher level, as the French championship is too weak right now to give valuable experience to our best players. Both Bozon and Huet made it to the NHL after playing in the Swiss league, for example. During this time, the federation needs to bring the teams back on track financially speaking. The whole championship has been a mess for too long to be competitive. Now there's more stability and things improve slowly. It will take time, but it's heading in the right direction, with people than actually know something about hockey, which was not the case before. Therefore, i wouldn't be surprised to see another frenchie making his way to the NHL in the upcoming 10-15 years, and hopefully some more later on.
