Chelsea's Florent Malouda dropped after Raymond Domenech rift as Abou Diaby and Nicolas Anelka start for France vs Uruguay

Chelsea man handed watching brief

Florent Malouda (France) - (Gettyimages)
A rumoured spat between coach Raymond Domenech and winger Florent Malouda has seen the Chelsea man dropped for France's World Cup 2010 opener against Uruguay - Arsenal's Abou Diaby has taken his place.

Reported disquiet in the French camp had seen stories emerge that the players had picketed Domenech to dump Bordeaux's Yoann Gourcuff and play Diaby. Instead, both Malouda and Barcelona's Thierry Henry will watch from the bench as Les Blues get their campaign underway with Chelsea's Nicolas Anelka leading the line.

Uruguay head coach Oscar Tabarez named his side yesterday, with exciting attacking duo Luis Suarez and Diego Forlan selected to lead the line. At the back, veteran Andres Scotti was dropped for Mauricio Victorino and Napoli midfielder Walter Gargano is out for Egidio Arevalo.

URUGUAY: Muslera; Lugano, Godin, Victorino, Perez; Pereira, Arevalo Rios, Gonzalez, Pereira; Forlan, Suarez.

FRANCE: Lloris; Sagna, Abidal, Gallas, Evra; Ribery, Toulalan, Diaby, Govou, Gourcuff; Anelka


 
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England 1-0 Belgium, Netherlands 2-0 Northern Ireland - follow all the international action LIVE! ahead of Euro 2012
With countries across the continent gearing up for their final warm-up games ahead of Euro 2012, join us for all the action from Saturday's friendlies. Get in touch with us via Twitter with your reaction.

Hosted by Joe Doyle
19:54 BST
We're still getting plenty of Hazard chat on Twitter. A few are now saying that he's not worth the hype, others saying he was brilliant(!?) and others (which I agree with), saying he created much of his own hype. What do you think? Get involved!
19:46 BST
Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.

"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.

"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
19:38 BST
Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."

"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."

Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
19:35 BST
And another point from today: Eden Hazard wasn't great. Don't think you can judge him on one performance though. What do you think? Is it just a case of too much hype around the Chelsea-bound Belgian?
19:32 BST
We're getting plenty of people saying it was boring. PLENTY. But Spain scored seven goals in eight games at the World Cup and I didn't hear too many of their fans complaining. Or as Fran Stinchcombe points out on Twitter: "If we had lost but played free flowing attacking football would these people still have moaned?"
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