In the 1998 World Cup finals, held in their own country, France defied the odds to win the tournament with silky football. Led by the-then best player in the world Zinedine Zidane, the French beat Italy and Croatia before hammering favourites Brazil three-nil in an amazing final. Two years later, they were being crowned the champions of Europe in Rotterdam. Even in 2006, Zidane led an even more unlikely charge to the World Cup final in Germany.
Here in 2010, France has slipped to a record low of 27th in FIFA's World Rankings after a simply disastrous World Cup campaign, followed by defeats to Norway and Belarus. Just how has it gone so wrong?
World Cup 2010 for France descended from ridiculous to laughable, making England's effort look like a serene bliss. Captain Patrice Evra and 'The Incredible Sulk' Nicolas Anelka led
player revolts that saw the entire squad refuse to train for strange manager Raymond Domenech, the fitness coach quit halfway through and a dismal goalless draw with Uruguay was the highlight on the pitch, considering they then lost to Mexico and hosts South Africa. Since then, Domenech has left to cheers from his players, the government has intervened to dissect the goings-on and new manager Laurent Blanc has attempted to refresh the country's football squad. But it's not quite worked.
Domenech has to take most of the blame. His odd management style included selecting players based on their starsigns, and he was never loved by the French despite his success in Germany while at the helm. And how he became the longest-serving manager of the national team in their history I will never know, he majorly outstayed his welcome. Now with promising Blanc at the helm, it should get better.
But there seems to be a bit of a rot in the French squad at the moment. It doesn't matter how much you hate the manager, experienced professionals like Anelka and Evra should be better than what they were in South Africa and deserve the bans they have received since. The likes of Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema haven't turned up for the big games, and don't seem to have the potential to step up to the places now left as the great Zidane and Thierry Henry have left in the French team.
At the end of the day, France is not the 27th best team in world football but deserves that place at the moment. Blanc will sort them out to some degree, but it's up to the players to step up to the mark and improve their country's fortunes. They still have some quality in their ranks; Lassana Diarra, Ribery and Florent Malouda are top players for their clubs and must convert that form to the international stage (don't worry France, us English have the same problem). Next month's double header against Romania and Luxembourg are key.
I suppose then the message of this blog is a hell of a lot can happen in twelve years. I mean, can you remember the names of all The Corrs?
Crystal Palace 4 Portsmouth 1: Oh dear...
Good old Pompey. After an optimistic week and a good performance against Ipswich, we spectacularly capitulate at Selhurst Park to gift one of our divisional rivals a big win. Well it would have been far too easy to have just kept it tight in London now wouldn't it? The defense appeared to have gone missing as James Vaughan tore us apart, while once again good play from the Blues ended with no points in the bag. I'm not the only Pompey fan who's getting tired of the same old story, and it's up to Cotterill to sort the defence out. Rocha needs match practise and to be fair, his partnership with Sonko is still young but the Blues manager needs to get it right before we lose more ground on the rest of the Championship. Atleast Kitson got off the mark, ay?
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