As French humiliations go, and there have been many, crashing out
of the Soccer World Cup competition in South Africa on Tuesday
was the worst in recent memory. It hit the French hard in what’s
left of their national pride and they may need years to earn it
back.
France’s defeat in the opening round of the World Cup
followed a weekend of antics never before witnessed at this level
of international competition, leaving fans wondering until game
time Tuesday whether their squabbling team would even come out of
the dressing room to face South Africa. Backbiting and mutiny had
got well out of hand, with the players disavowing their coach and
accusing each other of lacking talent.
Their loss (2-1) was a foregone conclusion. South Africa
ran circles around them, leaving them last in their group and
eliminated from the competition.
The team began to fall apart at halftime Friday when
striker Nicolas Anelka insulted Coach Raymond Domenech in the
privacy of the dressing room. His words, roughly translated into
English, were “Go f*** yourself, you dirty SOB !” In French,
this is such strong language that television commentators would
not actually repeat it. A few did however hold up to camera the
front page of l’Equipe, the French sports daily, which
splashed the insult (with no abbreviations or asterisks) on page
one Saturday morning.
What happens in the dressing room is supposed to stay in
the dressing room but someone, yet to be identified, shared the
incident with the correspondent of l’Equipe. Domenech
went ballistic when he learned of the publication and, in
agreement with the French Football Federation, decided to sack
Anelka and send him back to London, where he is a star player for
Chelsea.
Now it was the team’s turn to go ballistic. Recriminations
and threats flew in the hotel on Saturday, punctuated with a
botched press conference at which participants contradicted each
other on the sequence of events and on the basic question of
whether Anelka’s dismissal was justified. The team thought not.
The Federation thought otherwise.
One journalist on the scene called the performance “un
cauchemar,” a nightmare, for the poor preparation and failure to
agree on how to present the affair to the public.
The French team has been known to be under strain for the
past four years, with cliques at war with each other and Domenech
disliked by just about everyone. He has been reported to make his
lineup selections based in part on compatible star signs. His
communications skills with his players, the press and the public
are severely limited. It was already decided that he would
be replaced after this World Cup.
THE CRISIS BECAME AN AFFAIR OF STATE when President Nicolas
Sarkozy, co-chairing a St. Petersburg press conference with
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, said in answer to a French
journalist’s question that Anelka’s comments were “inacceptable,
inacceptable.” Medvedev looked uncomfortable as the questioning
veered away from the carefully prepared French-Russian friendship
message.
Back in South Africa, the drama continued to unfold. The
final French practice was suddenly canceled on Sunday just as it
was about to get under way. Television cameras caught long shots
of Domenech, team captain Patrice Evra, and other staff shouting
and pushing each other around on the field. No blows were
actually landed.
By now the French public was aghast that their team, world
champions in 1998, had collapsed in disarray so publicly. Sunday
TV commentators, sportswriters and some of my personal friends
erupted with comments such as “pathetic,” “a national disgrace,”
“spoiled children,” “cry-babies” and, as one national newspaper
put it, “We are now the laughingstock of the entire
world.”
The climax of Sunday’s episode ended when the players
climbed back in their bus but refused to allow Coach Domenech
aboard. The bus pulled away and Domenech hitched a ride with
South Africa security men. A full-blown mutiny was now under
way.
On Monday the team members remained holed up in their hotel
room until flying off to Bloemfontein for their final match. Some
players refused to play, leaving Domenech with a hodgepodge of
second-stringers trying to get to know each other in real
time.
It takes no great effort to project the short-tempered
French team’s behavior onto France today as a nation, where
nerves are frayed in the present weak economy. France likes to
think of itself as a combative culture, but the current level of
anger and resentment is well above normal.
The rest of Europe is also tightening its belt to reduce
deficits and save the euro, but only the French are so
belligerent over planned cutbacks in the welfare state, including
raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. Sarkozy has been forced
to work linguistic miracles to avoid saying “rigeur,” a scare
word to French trade unions.
Just as its soccer players are considered grossly overpaid,
French workers enjoy comfortable protections — but now from an
impoverished state treasury. Both resent any attempt to rein them
in.
As my neighbor summed it up, “France has not worked well
since military conscription was given up in the 1990s. Our young
men do not know the meaning of discipline. You see this
everywhere, in the workplace and on the soccer field.”
