Like most Frenchmen, Marcel
Desailly reserves a special place in his heart for a group of footballers
who inspired a generation.
So he has been delighted, if not a little surprised, to see Jean Tigana
- one of the most famed and influential members of the great Michel Platini-led
France team - thriving as Fulham manager.
Tomorrow, Desailly will be at the heart of the Chelsea defence at Craven
Cottage for a west London derby which has not featured on the top division's
fixture list since the 1967-68 season.
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Jean Tigana
Fulham |
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And the man who has won the World Cup and
European Championships for Les Bleus confesses that, while he's pleased
to see Fulham in the Premiership, Tigana's leap into English football came
as something of a shock.
Desailly, speaking for the growing French colony on these shores, said:
'I am very happy about what Jean Tigana is doing, but we were all very surprised
when he came to England. We didn't know how it would work out, but you can
see that he changed a lot of things around. He asked for a lot of small
details to be sorted out, things like diet and being serious with training.
'It has worked because now Fulham are one of the better teams in the Premier
League. They try to play a nice game. They pass it around because they have
players who are able to play. It is interesting, for me, to play against
Tigana's team.
'When I first came into the team at Nantes, in only my second game in the
First Division, we played against Bordeaux and Tigana was playing. 'That
entire generation of Tigana and the others, it was and is very important
to me. They were an inspiration.'
Fulham, described as 'our cousins' by Chelsea coach Claudio Ranieri, won't
need much extra inspiration to put one over on their more glamorous relations.
Chelsea, unbeaten this season despite a few defensive lapses, looked slick
in their 2-0 UEFA Cup victory over Levski Sofia on Thursday night. But their
biggest problem may be fatigue.
Desailly admitted: 'It can be hard because we will only have had 48 hours
to recover and it's a derby match. It's going to be a big game. The fans
have been waiting for this derby for a long time.'
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Source Soccernet by John Greechan and Steve Curry