French Implosion Continues As Coach Raymond Domenech Rips Team

Did you think that things were back to (relatively) normal for France’s soccer team when they returned to practice yesterday after striking Sunday in protest of striker Nicolas Anelka getting kicked off the team? If you did – to the delight of bloggers (like, um, us) everywhere, you were incorrect.

Yes, maybe the French players are done with their public displays outrage, but it appears their coach, Raymond Domenech, isn’t. Domenech tore into the team yesterday, erasing any doubt as to where he stood on the Anelka/refusal to practice issue.

Domenech said he tried to convince his players to practice, and described their actions in about the strongest language he could without cursing like Erik Bielderman:

“I tried to convince them that what they were doing was an aberration, an imbecility, a stupidity without name.”

Well, it sure sounds to us like the stupidity has a name, and Domenech said it himself – imbecility. An excellently chosen, almost lyrical-sounding name, but a name nonetheless. Really, the entire blocked quote is fantastic – stupidity without name sounds pretty poetic itself.

Clearly, Domenech was trying to prove beyond all doubt that when he read a statement from his players explaining why they wouldn’t practice, he wasn’t defending them. Rather, he said, “The French and all the people who were asking themselves what was happening had a right to know. So I took the paper and I read it.”

A fair point, but just one more event that contributed in some way to the monumental embarrassment that is now France’s 2010 World Cup showing. Oh, and did we mention that France is losing sponsors left and right (and major credit to the writer[s] of that article for another delightful turn of phrase, calling France’s team “shambolic”), or that the situation is such a mess that even French President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in?

Yes, things are still a mess in French camp, and they have, oh, 40 or so minutes to sort it out. Their next game kicks off at 10 against South Africa. We don’t suggest missing this one.

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