France Surrenders!

One of the biggest shocks of the FIFA 2010 World Cup so far has been the French.  No, not the uncontrolled swearing of the players onfield, the French national team.  You know you've had a bad World Cup experience when the scandal of your star player being sent off for a head butt in the previous World Cup final is considered a minor oversight compared to the completely idiotic meltdown of the present squad.

It started at the end of qualifying. France finished second in their qualifying group behind Serbia, already a worrying sign for the 2006 runners-up. It was a bit like a Renault Formula One car being outpaced by a souped-up Yugo*. They faced Ireland in a two-match playoff and won on a controversial last minute goal. The goal was controversial because the player who provided the pass for the goal, Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, only managed to make the pass because he controlled the ball with his hand. Twice. France were lucky to get out of Dublin without being beaten to a bloody pulp under a barrage of shillelaghs and hurleys.

FIFA and UEFA, the European soccer confederation, were petitioned by the Irish to overturn the unjust result. They responded in typical fashion, by patiently explaining to the Irish that nothing could be done to ever change the result because the referee's feelings would be hurt, FIFA would find it far more difficult to keep up their Champagne and Brie stocks, and the integrity of the game would be called into question by overruling a call for reasons so trivial as deliberate handball.  In response, Ireland declared war on FIFA and France, but the quick military surrender of the latter still did not lead to a change in the results.

So, France were off to the World Cup Finals in South Africa, led by their happy-go-lucky coach Raymond  "The Mad Hatter" Domenech (pictured right, in happier times). Domenech had led the team to their impressive runner-up performance in Germany four years earlier, but since then had developed a reputation for eccentricity that Howard Hughes would have found excessive.

It was well known that Domenech often made squad selections based on Astrology. He left Robert Pires out of the squad because he distrusted Scorpios. He also famously proposed to his girlfriend on live television... right after France were bounced out of Euro 2008. I guess he was looking for a silver lining.

The French Football Federation responded by announcing that Domenech would be replaced by highly-respected former French captain Laurent Blanc. However, in order to maintain France's reputation for efficiency and organization, they decided the change would not happen until after the World Cup finals.

After that two members of the French team then treated the international sporting press to a sex scandal involving an underage prostitute. It was almost as though they were trying to see how far they could go on the creepiness scale.

Given the controversy of qualifying, the scandal, and his own lame duck status, Domenech decided a novel approach was needed to World Cup preparation. He booked the team into a swanky Alps resort for a rigorous regimen of dune buggy driving. French center back William Gallas promptly crashed his buggy. Domenech suggested it was because the player's steering wheel was out of alignment with Mars.

Next, the team conspired to lose 1-0 to China in a World Cup warm-up game, a victory so surprising that several Chinese players left the field thinking they'd lost the match and that France were just sulking in victory. The French responded to the loss with internal squabbling about which players should start and whether or not Domenech was, in fact, a gnome.

Eventually, they reached South Africa without anyone being jailed, crushed by a dune buggy, or mortally wounded by an angry wife or girlfriend. They began with a flattering 0-0 draw to Uruguay, flattering in that France looked sleepier than Rip Van Winkle after an especially turkey-heavy Thanksgiving dinner. Had Uruguay not been confused by the impressive looking French jerseys and Franck Ribery's appearance in Nike's big World Cup commercial, they might have scored as many as ten goals.

They brightened up in time to be well-beaten by Mexico, a loss that was doubly ironic because Mexico wore green and white and celebrated both goals with routines from Riverdance. Immediately after the match Ireland officially declared Cinco de Mayo a national holiday.

This was the straw that broke the tenuous back of French sanity. Domenech subbed striker Nicholas Anelka out of the game and the psychotically-disappointed striker suggested his coach get jiggy with himself.  He also called Domenech a son of a w****, which given the recent French scandals might have been intended as a term of endearment.

Domenech, relying on Orion's current position and a mysterious telegram from notorious Israeli "psychic" and spoon designer Uri Geller, promptly told Anelka that his own services were no longer required and booked him on the early flight back to Paris, which was especially peculiar as Anelka plays for Chelsea, an English team based in London.

Anelka's teammates, distraught at seeing their teammate kicked off the team and the resulting disruption to the smooth-running French footballing operations, responded by refusing to train. French captain Patrice Evra presented Domenech with a letter from the players, demanding more playing time for bench players and less fortune cookies in the team diet. They also suggested they would have had more respect for Domenech if he'd simply headbutted Anelka and left it at that.

Evra then got into a public argument with the French trainer and the two were only prevented from  an entertaining slapfight by the quick thinking Domenech, who suspected that a practice field brawl was not a good idea with Uranus in retrograde**. The French players rewarded him for his peace-making skills by not allowing him back on the team bus. Domenech was forced to hitchhike back to the hotel.  Along the way, he lost the napsack containing all his star charts.

France lost their final group match, with South Africa, 2-1. This elated the South Africans and made their departure from the tournament somewhat more bearable. The French Football Federation however had reached their limit.  They immediately booked the team on a flight home, flying coach. The Federation spokesperson stated, "We wanted to fly them back via Ryan Air, to really punish them, but they don't travel this route."

Domenech, for his part, refused to shake the hand of Carlos Alberto Parreira, the Brazilian coach of South Africa. He then refused to explain his actions to the press, suggesting that they were extraterrestials. He did however provide them with a group palm reading and a seance.

The "piece de resistance" was a press conference with Zinedine Zindane, who so notoriously got sent off from the 2006 World Cup final. Zidane was asked about the turmoil and responded that it was a pity. At least someone in the French footballing world has a sense of proportion.

*Yes, I know Serbia is better than that and even beat Germany in the group stages of the finals. I couldn't resist the Yugo joke.
** Send in your own joke responses to this line and we'll publish the best. This article is already too long.

The Luck of the Irish?

By now, unless you're living in Osama Bin Laden's cave, you've heard about the sorry way in which Ireland went out of the World Cup qualifying at the hands of the French. Well, at the hand of one Frenchman.

Don't get me wrong. I'm an Arsenal man through and through and Thierry Henry is a legend for to Gooners as well as a fabulous player and competitor. He also apologised to the Irish and suggested a replay was the fairest option to resolve the incident (are you reading this Diego Maradona?*). It's pretty much all you can expect a footballer to do, short of checking into a halfway house and writing a tell-all book about Raymond Domenech.

Naturally, the French Football Federation (FFF) disagrees. They responded to Irish requests for a replay by giving their morning coffee particularly close attention and moving their weekly Riviera vacations up two days to take advantage of the lack of proles on the beaches.

UEFA (The European Federation) was even less helpful, greeting the Irish requests for a replay with reminders that "President Michel Platini is French and do you think he's crazy insane as well?" As of this evening, they aren't returning my phone calls on that specific detail.

So, Ireland took the remarkable step of privately asking the world body, FIFA for permission to join the World Cup as a 33rd team. That's right, they asked to expand the 32 team tournament to 33 teams.

Now, I'm incredibly sympathetic to the Irish cause here, not simply because I'm of at least some small Irish extraction (if Mum's got her story straight), nor because I spent a glorious week with the family in Ireland last June, sipping Guinness and Murphy's stout and driving the hell out of the magnificent Irish countryside. I think they were wronged in the playoff, much in the way Katie Holmes feels wronged each morning when she wakes up and realises she's no longer on Dawson's Creek, if you know what I mean.

However, asking FIFA, the world's second largest collection of officious, self-important, double-dealing bureaucrats after the UN,** for permission to add a 33rd team to their showpiece event is simply barmy.

It's barmy at one level because you couldn't expect normal sensible people to rearrange the structure of the current finals to fit in an extra team, however aggrieved.

But it's barmy on Dr. Crippen levels to privately ask a collection of thick, irresponsible clods like Sepp Blatter and company to change up the tournament and not expect them to turn about and blather about it in front of the world media, grinning like Enterainment Tonight reporters speculating about David Beckham's love life. Of course this is exactly what they did, with all the insouciance of cocktail banter.

Still, FIFA do have to give an official response, which they are now preparing. It just so happens that I've come across an early draft containing the reasons for which Ireland will be denied the mythical 33rd slot at the 2010 South Africa World Cup.***

**********
FIFA - Fédération Internationale de Football Association

Offical Notice to:

Football Association of Ireland,
AKA Cumann Peile na hÉireann
AKA Them blokes wot lost on the chuffin 'andball¹


Dear Irish Chaps,

After careful consideration of your request to be included as the 33rd team in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, including a vigorous discussion over drinks and foie gras, and a Swedish massage, we regret to inform you that there is absolutely no way we can accomodate your request, not even were you to include the customary generous donation to the FIFA executives retirement fund (See enclosed envelope and Swiss bank account number).

We realise that your federation, including the plucky Liam Brady, feel hard done by the results of the playoff with France and we know that the gift basket and Starbucks coupon can hardly make up for that. Still, we do have a tournament to run (it's funny to remember that but yes, we are in charge of the whole thing. Why just the other day, in-between press conferences and mudbaths, I was telling Sepp how strange it is that all these meetings and luxury hotel stays result in those exciting games. Then Maurice came over to give me my rub down... but I digress). Including your team in the tournament would create a dangerous precedent for the hundreds of other national federations who feel they too have been wronged in some way by international football officiating.

Still, we wanted you to be able to see our side of things. So here are the specific
reasons the request has been denied:

• With all Europe's top mathematicians and physicists loitering over at the Large Hadron Collider, we couldn't find anyone who could work out exactly how to divide 33 teams into groups. Isn't 33 some sort of prime number or integer or some math thingy like that? Way above our pay grade.


• Henry's handball was totally unintentional. He clearly lost his mind and thought he was his friend and compatriot Tony Parker. Could happen to anyone. Why, just the other day, General Secretary Valcke insisted he was Groucho Marx. It took an hour to scrub that greasepaint moustache off of him.


• The hotels in South Africa are all booked. Seriously, we'd have to put you up in tents or at homes of the members of the South African delegation. They're not going to put up with us and that at the same time.


• Given that the nation of France supplies 100% of the champagne used at FIFA functions, we're not about to piss those chaps off. There's a reason we all speak French instead of Irish over here at FIFA, and quite frankly, Guinness is just a bit heavy for our kind of parties.


• We are seriously concerned that if we allow you in, Zinedine Zindane may come out of retirement to head butt us. The FFF has officially warned us of this possibility.


• FIFA has recently developed a reputation for being distant and unresponsive to the needs of footballers around the world and dammit, we've worked hard for that rep. We're sure you understand.


• Roy Keane asked us not to.
  

Sincerely,

Your Chums at FIFA

1. Special English translation provided by University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne and Rinkworks.

**********
*Of course not. Hardly anyone is these days. I must add though that this answer assumes Mr. Maradona can read at all.
** And just ahead of the International Olympic Committee on numbers alone.
*** Lucky me!