There was one camera shot of Raymond Domenech, the France coach, which summed up his Euro 2008 last night. His team were seven minutes from the departure lounge back to France, 2-0 down to Italy and down to 10 men following Eric Abidal’s first half red card. Thierry Henry looked to have won his side a corner in a desperate effort to give Les Blues a glimmer of a chance of qualification. But referee Lubos Michel incorrectly awarded the Italians a goal kick.
The coach’s reaction? One of disbelieving laughter. It had been a night where everything that could go wrong for his team, did go wrong. Captain Lillian Thuram was left out due to concerns over his attitude, which marks a sad end to international football for the French’s most capped star. They lost the influential midfielder Franck Ribery to injury, then the opening goal on 25 minutes thanks to Andrea Pirlo’s penalty after Abidal hauled down Luca Toni to earn an early bath. Ribery’s replacement, Arsenal target Samir Nasri, then had to be sacrificed for defender Jean-Alain Boumsong before Daniele De Rossi despatched a free kick via a big deflection from Henry into the net to clinch a quarter final with Spain for the World Champions.
Whilst Roberto Donadoni’s team have recovered from their opening defeat to the Netherlands, France haven’t got going in the tournament. Indeed, even during qualification they very rarely looked the impressive force they were in 1998 and 2000, and in the latter stages of the 2006 World Cup. Scotland defeated them twice in the qualifiers and in the match in Paris (the glory goal below), we rarely looked troubled; France lacked any imagination or craft to fashion any clear cut openings.
And it was a similar story in their snore draw with Romania. The Romanians were content to sit in and see if Domenech’s team could break them down- they couldn’t. Indeed, France could’ve lost it towards the end as Romania adopted a bloder approach.
They then took on the Dutch, who have taken the tournament by storm with their fast, free flowing attacking style. And they showed no mercy, inflicting a painful 4-1 thrashing to set up last night’s make or break game with Italy, providing Romania failed to beat Marco Van Basten’s team.
But it all went spectacularly wrong for the 2 time European Champions and they have to endure the humiliation of finishing bottom of the “group of death” with just one goal to their name. Domenech last night looked like a man about to pay for the price of failure- his look in the camera shot I mentioned had one of resignation about it.
France may be lacking the creative genius of a Michel Platini or Zinedine Zidane currently, but they have enough gifted stars to have made a better fist of things. The likes of Henry, Claude Makalele and Franck Ribery are established world class stars, playing for some of the biggest clubs in Europe. Added to that they have rising stars such as Lyon’s Karim Benzema and Nasri to call upon. They are not a side lacking in talented players.
The buck ultimately stops with the manager and it seemed to me that some of the players had lost confidence in Domenech. His team, for most of his tenure, looked unconvincing and with the likes of Makalele and Thuram retiring from the international scene, a fresh start all round could be wise for France as they build towards the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Au’ revoir Domenech and bonjour Didier Deschamps? I would not be surprised.
Deschamps is a good shout. Think this French team needs refreshing. Saw Desially say it was time for a changing of the guard, which I presume means that the likes of Henry and Makelele are coming towards the end of their international careers? Who else?
Thuram has retired, then there’s Vieira who’s into his thirties. Sagnol is another who isn’t getting any younger.
Deschamps for me is an obvious choice. World Cup winning captain, and currently out of work, but has good level managerial experience with Monaco and Juventus. Time will tell- we’ll find out on July 3 if Domenech is still in a job or not.