It might be a British thing, looking to tear down the great, but we all love it when one of the traditional big nations crashes out early on. How we tut and berate the coach who can’t see the better systems so obvious from the armchair as one of them is seen limping out at the group stage, or crashing out to the tournament’s surprise package in the first knockout. After our look at Argentina – for whom anything could happen – The Vuvuzela View looks at the teams who aren’t looking like the world beaters they can be coming into the tournament, starting with France.
Form for this: Shock exit in 2002 when defeat in the first game against Senegal sparked an awful group stage, the holders exiting without scoring a single goal. Made up for it in 2006 by reaching the final, though began group stage unconvincingly, winning only once to scrape through.
Why they’ll crash out: In a name: Raymond Domenech. The coach’s maverick decisions have brought criticism and ridicule, even from his own players. Notoriously admitted to distrusting Scorpios and leaving them out of his squads on little other grounds, he could be laughed out of managing a pub team. The goal which took them to the finals is almost as notorious as the headbutt which closed their last tournament, but being poor in qualifying and struggling against Ireland got them to that situation in the first place. The French lost to Austria, twice drew with Romania and only managed a 1-0 win in the Faroe Islands, although they made up for that with a home thrashing. The advent of a new 4-3-3 after Lassana Diarra’s withdrawal to get the best out of their attacking talent and dropping captain but Barcelona bench-warmer Thierry Henry brought some new hope, but the friendlies have brought loss to China, a draw with Tunisia and a late winner against Costa Rica, without impressing for the most part.
Why they’ll scrape through: On paper, they’re the best team in the group. Mind you, they were in 2002 as well. Mexico and Uruguay look like decent sides, and even South Africa have got good results in friendlies with home advantage on their side. While that might point to them providing plenty of competition for qualifying spots, it’s the sort of group where teams might take plenty of points off each other and any one could go through, so France might once again only need one decent result. It’s easy to forget that Domenech was at the helm four years ago, but with only a handful of player surviving from that squad, the experience of coming so close is largely absent, and with it any sense of a group revenge mission for the penalties defeat in the final.
Prediction: Could well go out at the first hurdle. But with their recent form, would an early exit even be that surprising?
The Vuvuzela View 