Toon winger to make impact from bench against Serbia

France are set to play Serbia tonight with wild card winger Hatem Ben Arfa starting on the bench and Yohan Cabaye in midfield.

Tonight’s game is being staged at Stade Auguste Delaune, home of Stade de Reims, the previous club of latest Newcastle signing, Roman Amilfitano.

France manager Laurent Blanc is expected to make sweeping changes to the team that came back from a 2 – 0 half-time deficit against Iceland to win 3 – 2 with goals from Mathieu Debuchy, Franck Ribery and Adil Rami.

It is expected that Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye will be one of only 4 players (the others being Philippe Mexes, Samir Nasri and Karim Benzema) to  retain their places from the starting 11 that beat Iceland. 25-year old winger Ben Arfa will be starting on the bench, but will be surely looking to build upon on the attacking display he showed against Iceland.

France play Estonia on Tuesday 5th June at Le Mans in their last warm-up game before Euro 2012 begins. Newcastle United fans will be hoping to see Ben Arfa and Cabaye as key players for France, starting with the opening Group D game against England in Donetsk on 11th June.

It is 8 years since Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England faced France at the same stage in Group B of Euro 2004 in Portugal.

Frank Lampard put England into the lead on 38 minutes and England were left to rue David Beckham’s penalty miss on 73 minutes as his Real Madrid team mate, Zinedine Zidane, scored a brilliant free kick on 90 minutes and a winning penalty 3 minutes into injury time to give France a 2 – 1 win in Lisbon.