This week there were several friendly games amongst which France – Brazil, a classic! France won 1 – 0 helped by a Brazilian player being sent off just before the end of the 1st half. I think that friendly games are there to help coaches prepare their squads for the different competitions they are involved in. I’m not sure how much Laurent Blanc can have learned from defeating a – weak – Brazilian team that played with only 10 players for more than 45 minutes. Why not in that case send off the faulty player and replace him with another one. Since friendly games also allow more than the 3 usual substitutions, the replacement of a sent-off player would not seem irrelevant for helping teams improve their strategies and tactics.
Maracanazos like to bring up new ideas.