France call up stars for Australia trip

French coach Roger Lemerre has defended his decision to take a full strength team down to Australia for a friendly in Melbourne on November 11th.

World governing body FIFA backed down last night from plans to force the French and Australians to revise their selections for the game to include one player only from any club after a campaign led by Arsenal and backed by ten other European clubs against the fixture which Australia are using to prepare for 2002 World Cup qualifiers in November.

"I don't want to argue with anybody, it's not going to happen. I can't justify any intrusion into the affairs of the national team especially just eight months ahead of World Cup in Japan and South Korea next June", said Lemerre as he confirmed his full strength squad.

"I'm calm. All the players will be present. The clubs should understand the interests of the national team are more important than theirs."

Bayern Munich pair Willy Sagnol and Bixente Lizarazu have not been called up because they travel to Japan for the Intercontinental cup final with Bayern later next month.

The squad in full -

Goalkeepers - Fabien Barthez (Manchester United), Gregory Coupet (Lyon) and Ulrich Rame (Bordeaux).

Defenders - Vincent Candela (Roma), Philippe Christanval (Barcelona), Marcel Desailly (Chelsea), Frank Leboeuf (OM), Mikael Silvestre (Manchester United) and Lilian Thuram (Juventus).

Midfielders - Eric Carriere (Lyon), Christophe Dugarry (Bordeaux), Christian Karembeu (Olympiakos), Claude Makelele (Real Madrid), Emmanuel Petit (Chelsea), Robert Pires (Arsenal), Patrick Vieira (Arsenal) and Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid).

Strikers - Thierry Henry (Arsenal), David Trezeguet (Juventus) and Sylvain Wiltord (Arsenal).