This is how we play soccer. How do you?

France won the world cup once, in 1998, when France hosted the competition. It was huge. And also the "coming out" of one of our all time stars Zinedine Zidane. He and a few oldies saved the French team ready to be kicked out before the play-offs 8 years later (he was injured and did not compete during the 2002 world cup that ended up pretty early for France), and took the team to the finals, where his infamous head butt put an end to his international career.
No matter what people say, I think he is one of the best (if not the best) soccer players in the world and a really generous person, a great example for generations of kids.

Since 2006, though, the national team has been struggling. The players, arrogant and selfish, have not been able to produce any results, and the team got eliminated in the early rounds of the Euro 2008. The coach Raymond Domenech decided not to change a losing team. And for the last 2 years, despite criticism and poor results during test games, despite the fact that these players don't get along, he did not make any change. To give you an idea of the atmosphere in the group at the beginning of the South African competition, there were two groups of players hanging out together, the "carribean players" and the "bullies from the suburbs". Plus one guy, the one nobody else likes because, I quote: he is too polite. That already gives you an idea of the level of interactions among the players.
So these guys go to South Africa (after cheating against Ireland if you remember), and stay at one of the most expensive hotels... which triggers criticism from the French Minister of Sports. This is a good start. Then the first game against Uruguay ends with a tie. Here and there, you can start hearing nasty comments about the players unable to develop an organized game and blah blah blah.
Someone has to be blamed. Guess who? Yep, the too polite guy. He was on the first line, wasn't able to score, and it was decided he wouldn't play the second game.

It was probably a good thing for him in the end. The second game was the beginning of the real drowning. First half, no one scores, but one of the "bullies", Nicolas Anelka, does everything wrong on the field. He refuses to cover the zone the coach had told him to, which reduces the opportunities of play for the team, and barely even runs during the game. I mean the guy is paid (a lot) to run after a ball, the ball rolls at about 3 feet from him and he just watches... He just didn't seem to even want to be there. He is not on the field for the second half, but the lack of enthusiasm and desire of the team is obvious when the Mexican goal (excellent Mexican team btw) doesn't even trigger a reaction. Shameful performance of a team supposed to be one of the favorites.
At this point the speakers on the radio have only words like "losers", "lazy", "incompetent" and so on to qualify the team, and I won't even talk about the violent critiscim towards the coach, who stubbornly never wanted to reconsider the team composition. The only chances for France to be qualified for the play-offs at this point are if 1) France wins against South Africa by at least 2 points while Uruguay wins against Mexico; 2) France wins against South Africa by at least 4 points while Mexico wins against Uruguay. South Africa has not played so well so far, but I don't think France can beat any team. Plus if Uruguay and Mexico tie, they're both qualified, so why would they take any chance? So it is very unlikely that France will go on to the next round.

But when you think the show is over, the broken arms club still has something for you: a newspaper published this morning a paper saying that Anelka violently insulted the coach during the half time (Go f*** yourself, s** of a **** - I quote) while the coach was yelling at him for not following the directions. And that would be the reason he didn't play the second half. Great. So now we have the journalists, the government commenting on this last fact. The news all day only talk about how unacceptable this behavior is, and how this guy has no respect for the coach. Consequences: the French Football Federation (FFF) fires Anelka, effective right now. That's right. The guy is taking a plane tonight to London (where his current club is). No more super fancy hotel, and never a national team jersey on for him. Well he will only miss a game after all. I guess he might also loose a few sponsors.

To (temporarily) close the chapter, the team captain, Patrice Evra had a press conference tonight and was asked about what happened during the half time on Thursday. His response: the words of Anelka were not quite these words, and the team problems are certainly not solved by his departure. The problem is, there is a traitor, someone who went out and told the journalists about that, it was in the locker room where only players and staff were, and now the team has to get rid of the traitor.
Okay. At this point, I think the whole thing leaves me speechless. In the polls, 83% of the French hope the French team is going to lose their next game and leave the competition. Is this karma? Is this all because they cheated in the first place? Is it really because the coach was/is blind/stupid/stubborn/incompetent (circle the word you choose)? Is it what French soccer has become (I won't talk about the soccer fans killing each other...)?

I love rugby.

(note: of course I did not take this picture - googled and can't find out the author...)