Football Update: The France World Cup Fiasco gets Interesting
France had one of the most disappointing World Cup’s ever in the country’s history. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa saw the team descend into chaos and they lost all their matches and exited the finals in the group stage. Having come runners up in 2006, the team’s performance was extremely disappointing for everyone involved; from the fans to the management to the players. The scandal that took place before the team’s final match in which Nicolas Anelka had a row with the coach Raymond Domenech, has recently put the team in hot water again after a formal inquiry was launched.
A recent inquiry hearing into the French team’s actions has recently convened and it found a number of players guilty. The events that took place at the World Cup revolved around Anelka having heated words with Domenech and was sent home for his indiscretions. The team did not like the way their team mate was treated and so they decided not to attend a training session. The captain Patrice Evra was benched for the next match and it turned out to be France’s final match at the finals. The team were beaten 2-1 by South Africa and Domenech refused to shake the South African coach’s hand when the match was over. It was a very sorry state of affairs and the team went home very dejected.
For his part in the incident, Nicolas Anelka has been banned for 18 matches by the French Football Federation. The captain, Evra has been banned for five matches, Frank Ribery faces a three match ban and Jeremy Toulalan got a one match ban. Eric Abidal made up the fifth player in the team that was highlighted as causing the controversy. It looks like the 31 year old Anelka’s international career is over because after his 18 match ban he will probably be too old to play competitively anyway. Frank Ribery has his own problems going on as he has been accused of having s*x with an underage prostitute prior to the World Cup. With his three match suspension, he has time to reflect on what he did and maybe make up for his mistakes. It looks as if the entire French team is in shambles at the moment, and the current coach Laurent Blanc did not select any of the 23 man World cup squad to make up part of his new team that played against Norway recently. France lost that game 2-1, so it looks like it will take a lot of work to get the team back up to scratch.
Nicolas Anelka looks unfazed by the ban handed to him. He has been quoted as saying that the whole inquiry was something of a joke and the French Football Federation were a bunch of clowns. He thinks the whole thing was done so the management and the Federation could save face and punish the players. It is interesting that the coach who was something of a strange character and who led the team on their disastrous run in the World Cup escaped unharmed from the inquiry. He was fired from his job so that might be punishable enough. This ban really does not seem to bother Anelka too much because he has a flourishing career going on at the moment at English club side Chelsea and he could not care less about an international ban. It seems a lot more will have to be done in order to rescue French football and bring it back to its glory days, the days which saw greats like Zinedine Zidane enthralling fans and France being a great team to support. It has all gone downhill for the French team in recent years.
Hopefully after all the controversy and scandals have died down and the new coach starts to take charge of things, the team will get back to its heyday. If the infighting continues and the problems and rebellions keep making an appearance, the team will never get back on track. Let’s hope the team can recover its form and become the team that a lot of people once fell in love with.
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