Paris: Samir Nasri, who was instrumental in helping Manchester City to win the Premier League title, was left out of France’s World Cup squad when Didier Deschamps unveiled a 23-man list plus seven standby players on Tuesday. Nasri, who has a reputation of being a troublemaker and was disappointing in Les Bleus’s playoff first leg against Ukraine last year, was a notable absentee along with defender Eric Abidal.
Abidal, who has been used sparingly by Claudio Ranieri at Monaco during the second part of the season, has been deemed not good enough to travel to Brazil. “Samir is an important player for Manchester City but he has not performed that well with France,” Deschamps said. Nasri was banned for three matches after launching a foul-mouthed rant at a reporter following France’s quarter-final defeat by Spain at Euro 2012.
Sabella shuts door on Tevez recall
Carlos Tevez’s excellent form for Italian champions Juventus this season failed to earn him a recall when Argentine coach Alex Sabella named a provisonal 30-man squad on Tuesday. Tevez, capped 64 times, scored 19 goals for Juventus as they retained their Serie A title this term but not even that was a strong enough argument for Sabella to call up the 30-year-old for the first time since he took over at the helm of the national side following Argentina’s failure to win the 2011 Copa America which they hosted.
