France's World Cup campaign in South Africa last summer will go down as one of the most ill-fated of a major football nation but coach Laurent Blanc appears to have finally got his players and the French public to focus on the future rather than the past
The noises emanating from Les Bleus' training camp at Clairefontaine in the last few days have been positive ones. Harmony, at least on the surface and in public, has been restored. Pulling on a French jersey has become fun again rather than a chore, according to captain Alou Diarra.
After the 1-0 home defeat by Belarus which opened their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, some wondered whether Blanc had really been the right choice to succeed the much-maligned Raymond Domenech.
Since then, however, Blanc's team have rattled off three straight wins to stand on top of their group.
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Ruud Gullit has been in a few difficult situations during his coaching career but the Dutch legend has really taken on a challenge by accepting the job at the helm of the Russian Premier League side Terek Grozny.
Public disagreements with the then Chelsea chairman Ken Bates and Newcastle hero Alan Shearer during his stints at those clubs seem to pale by comparison to trying to make a club competitive that finished 12th out of 16 teams in the Russian top flight last season, just three points above the relegation zone.
There is also the political situation in Chechnya to take into account.
Even though the mood in Grozny, the capital city, has been a lot calmer in the last two years since the Russian government in Moscow managed to reassert its control over the region, the social, economic and psychological scars after two wars in the last 20 years still remain.
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At least in comparison to recent seasons, the last 16 in this year's Europa League seems to be loaded with clubs who have an illustrious history.
CSKA Moscow, Porto and PSV Eindhoven are names that immediately catch the eye - and Manchester City's next opponents, Dynamo Kiev, are no exception.
The pair meet for the very first time in a competitive match on Thursday, when they take to the field at the chilly Valeriy Lobanovskiy Dynamo Stadium, named after the Ukrainian side's famous former player and coach. Lobanovskiy - who died in 2002 - was at the helm when Dynamo won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1975 and 1986.
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Hi, I'm Phil Minshull. I've lived in Spain since 1997 and covered Spanish football since the first day I got here. My blog aims to provide some insight into what's happening in La Liga, and there is much more to it than only Real and Barcelona, as well as elsewhere around Europe.
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