What has happened at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? Two of the most reputable squads, usually colossal media-darlings of attention, England and France, have seemingly fallen apart in tandem in the opening round. Between Robert Green’s unforgettable flub, and Wayne Rooney’s failure to even make a field footprint of an impression so far, the English squad doesn’t have time for tea and biscuits. And the French squad won’t even heed the directives of their head coach—collectively boycotting practice the other day due to a dispute about their last match against Mexico. As time and opportunity wind down, we’re struggling for reasons and explanations to help us understand the collective failures.
Let us preface things by falling back on an old hockey analogy, one that such hold theoretically in almost any team sport. If you’re a superstar, say, Sidney Crosby, and you’re playing for team Canada in the Olympics, chances are your skills are going to be vitalized and rendered supreme due to the talent of your company. The supporting cast is better, therefore you should be as well. But so far nothing of this sort has worked its way over to the World Cup—in fact a slew of otherwise professional superstars have shown themselves wholly lacklustre on the world stage, from England’s Wayne Rooney to Stephen Gerrard, proving this dictum on a soccer level to be almost impeccably untrue.
This is all the more palpable due to the fact that top English teams in the Premier league feature a stellar international cast, and for them object is little if no object. But here the overall problem with England has definitely been their inability to capitalize on superstar players. Wayne Rooney has all but disappeared on the field, a magic trick for which one can only draw an explanation by thinking that David Copperfield were involved.
Friday night the English squad took on Algeria, knowing that the other Group C match, between US and the Slovenians, had closed at a wild 2-2, after a dubious refereeing call had blocked the Americans from victory. That meant that Slovenia led the Group with four points, and the English had a chance to begin asserting themselves with a victory. Instead, in all of 90 minutes of play, they had precisely one full chance at scoring against Algeria—a shot by Frank Lampard that was saved routinely by goalkeeper Rais M’Bolhi.
On the French side, reports abound about the complete falling out of coach and team after Nicolas Anelka was thrown off the French squad for insulting head coach Raymond Domenech at the halfway mark in their match with Mexico (a match they lost dismally 2-0). The squabbling has even been brought to the attention of Nicolas Sarkozy. Players refused to practice afterward and offered Domenech a written statement saying that they did not agree with Anelka’s objection from the tournament. Moments later, the team’s director, Jean-Louis Valentin, stormed off the field shouting that he was “ashamed” of players not training.
After being cornered by reporters, he announced his resignation from the squad, adding: "It's a scandal for the French, for the young people here. It's a scandal for the federation and the French team. They don't want to train. It's unacceptable. As for me, it's over. I'm leaving the federation. I'm sickened and disgusted."
In their next match French is set to take on South Africa, a game which, if they lose, will knock them out of the tournament in early and uncharacteristic fashion. Few think in disarray they will win—and even if they do, the French Football Association has announced it will hold an official investigation into the recent controversies.
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