Everybody Hates Raymond!!

France go into their final game against the Tournament hosts South Africa on Tuesday with the eyes of the World firmly focused on Les Bleu. With the French World Cup campaign having more excitement off the pitch rather than on it will be interesting if the French galvanize for one last hurrah or sign off with a whimper. In 2006 they were runners up in this competition but four years later they head into the final game with no goals and only the single point.
Heading into the World Cup you felt that the Coach Domenech was in an untenable position. With the decision already being public that after this World Cup he would be removed as head coach and Laurent Blanc installed it made his job with a bunch of individual egos more difficult.
Nicolas Anelka possibly unsurprisingly was recently sent home after getting into and then failing to apologize for a foul mouthed rant at outgoing head coach, Raymond Domenech during half time in the loss to Mexico.
Once Anelka was removed the farce continued on Sunday with what was meant to be an open training session. This was designed in part to help heal the rift between the players and supporters and instead of seeing a top European team go through their paces the supporters instead saw Patrice Evra get into a stand up argument with a fitness coach and then the players flat out refused to train. From the team bus they issued a statement protesting the treatment of Anelka.
The episode has enraged the French public back home and President Nicolas Sarkozy has stated the whole situation as unacceptable, while his advisor Henri Guaino was distressed by the situation, saying "It's no longer football; it's no longer sport," he said. "In fact, it's no longer a team". The team director Jean-Louis Valentin resigned in disgust at the scandal and I am sure if France still utilized the guillotine then many more heads would roll! In fact the President has asked the French Sports Minister to stay in South Africa to help sort it out and on Monday Domenech and Evra will meet Jean-Pierre Escalettes for talks. Maybe more worryingly than this Benny Hill sketch that is the French team would be accusations from some corners that the whole player rebellion is down to race. Certainly that is a different mentality than the multi ethnic team that did so well by winning the World Cup in 1998, nicknamed ’Blacks, Blancs and Beurs’ (Blacks, Whites and Arabs)
The situation has become so bad that many back home probably hope that the team fall to South Africa and head back home to regroup before any more headlines get written. Sponsors are already pulling their ads but the whole situation could have been avoided in my opinion if the French Federation had stepped up to the plate before the team headed out, a whole two years ago. After the Euro Championships when the French crashed out at the first hurdle losing 4-1 to Holland and 2-0 to Italy. In fact just like so far their only point came in their opening game, again a 0-0. At that point if it was felt that Domenech wasn’t the man then he should have been pulled then. Going into a major tournament knowing you are losing your job hardly motivates you to ‘try’ and some of the players with their egos know that he will not be there after so why should they listen to his direction.