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Friday, June 25, 2010

World Cup: Le fiasco

This is what happens when you go on a mission to defend your national colours and national pride – and the weapons you take into your arsenal are a rattle of over-inflated, egocentric, arrogant and ignorant players who are far too concerned with their own personal agenda instead of the colours they are playing for. Apparently, the days when one would wear the national shirt and play for the mere pride of wearing that shirt are well and truly over.Two names come to mind. One – the biggest disappointment of the World Cup so far – France, who have already been sent packing, having become a laughing stock in the process. The second one – England – are not too far behind in the proceedings.Many were glad to see the back of France, not just in Ireland alone. The unpopular Raymond Domenech and his squabbling squad had their exit rubber-stamped after they were well beaten in Bloemfontein by the battling host nation, who won deservingly, but are now officially in the record books as the first host nation to exit the tournament in the group stage.It was much more disappointing to see an attacking and resolute Bafana Bafana join France on the scrapheap, as they, at least, showed immense passion and pride. Steven Pienaar's mission to emulate the example set by his namesake François was always going to be a long shot, but at least his team bowed out with their honour intact."We have shown that we are one country and that's all we need to say. France reached the last World Cup final and all their players play for big clubs so we have to be proud of beating a team of their standing," he said, as quoted by The Guardian.France, on the other-hand, have been the most tedious and excruciating side to watch in this tournament, worse than England's first two matches (The Sofia Echo went to print before the final round of matches in group C).A tornado of scandals, insults, protests and strikes saw a few players and their coach tarnish the hopes and dreams of an entire nation, dragging the reputation of France through the mud before the eyes and ears of the entire world. To top it off, Domenech's last act at the World Cup was to refuse to shake the hand of Carlos Alberto Parreira, South Africa's head coach, after the match.Much has been written about Nicolas Anelka's spat with Domenech and the stream of invective that the Chelsea striker launched at his coach, resulting in Anelka's withdrawal from squad by the French Football Federation (FFF) after he refused to apologise to Domenech. "Anelka's remarks are totally unacceptable for the FFF, French football and the values it defends," the FFF said in a statement.No less has been written about captain Patrice Evra leading the players' walk-out from training on June 20 in support of Anelka. With Evra dropped in retaliation, the rest of the squad showed little desire to excel and were it not for goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and several unlucky bounces, the margin of victory for South Africa would certainly have been enough to progress to the knock-out stages.As its stands, the hapless Domenech era will be remembered for two group-stage exits at Euro 2008 and this year's World Cup – with one point, France repeated its dismal showing in the 2002 World Cup, although this time around it managed to score one goal – and the improbable run to the 2006 World Cup final, when the head coach was essentially sidelined by his senior players, led by Zinedine Zidane, taking charge of both selection and tactics.England, are you watching? The Three Lions camp is just as full of millionaire primma-donnas with overinflated egos who dared stitch up their own revolution against disciplinarian Fabio Capello. In the old days, England always went out in the quarter-finals or semifinals in penalty shoot-outs, or through the intervention of some Divine Limb. While England traditionally under-perform, at least they would go down fighting, tooth and nail.This time around, England has nothing to show for, at least not after the first two matches. Hopefully, they will muster more effort than Les Bleus, or they might as well join the French on same plane to Europe.