Manchester City midfielder Samir Nasri has not been included in the France squad for this summer’s World Cup.<\/p>\n
Defender Gael Clichy was another City player not to get the nod from manager Didier Deschamps in the young 23-man set-up for the tournament in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Nasri, who has won 41 caps, and Monaco captain Eric Abidal, capped 67 times, did not even feature on the seven-man standby list.<\/p>\n
Deschamps said: “Samir is an important player for Manchester City but he has not performed that well with France.<\/p>\n
“He is a starter at City, which is not the case with France, and he has made it clear that he is not happy when he is a substitute – and I can tell you it can be felt in the squad.<\/p>\n
“I built the best squad, I did not pick the 23 best French players.”<\/p>\n
Nasri has been resigned to putting his feet up this summer and told Canal+ recently: “I think the die is cast. I respect (Didier Deschamps’) choice. I’ll watch the World Cup on TV.<\/p>\n
“If starting games in a club like Manchester City and winning two titles isn’t enough, too bad, I won’t regret anything.”<\/p>\n
There are eight players aged under 25 in the squad, including the Real Sociedad winger Antoine Griezmann, who made his international debut against the Netherlands in March.<\/p>\n
France have been drawn in Group E with Switzerland, Ecuador and Honduras.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
France squad:<\/p>\n
Goalkeepers: Hugo Lloris (Tottenham Hotspur), Steve Mandanda (Olympique Marseille), Mickael Landreau (Bastia)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Defenders: Mathieu Debuchy (Newcastle United), Lucas Digne (Paris St Germain) Patrice Evra (Manchester United), Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal), Eliaquim Mangala (Porto), Bacary Sagna (Arsenal), Mamadou Sakho (Liverpool), Raphael Varane (Real Madrid)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Midfielders: Yohan Cabaye (Paris St Germain), Clement Grenier (Olympique Lyon), Blaise Matuidi (Paris St Germain), Rio Mavuba (Lille), Paul Pogba (Juventus), Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle United), Mathieu Valbuena (Olympique Marseille)<\/p>\n
Forwards: Karim Benzema (Real Madrid), Olivier Giroud (Arsenal), Antoine Griezmann (Real Sociedad), Loic Remy (Newcaste United), Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manchester City midfielder Samir Nasri has not been included in the France squad for this summer’s World Cup. Defender Gael Clichy was another City player not to get the nod from manager Didier Deschamps in the young 23-man set-up for the tournament in Brazil. Nasri, who has won 41 caps, and Monaco captain Eric Abidal, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4045,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions\/4045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}