Goodness - seems the French World Cup team is imploding...

[Earlybird]

Story here:

news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8750302.stm

What a mess.

Did the coach do the wrong thing to send the player home?

Surely this is standard French sporting procedure? Get yourself het up into a right old tizzy over something and nothing and then run on the pitch all fire and foie gras to give the opposing team a good going over with your sac a main

Hoping Bonsoir will see this and give us the perspective from France......

I'm not sure our lot are doing much better.

Not sure it was coach that sent him home - was FFA - thread over on world cup too .

no meglet but it will be easier going on holiday to France this year if our teams are equally crap.

Anelka is known as Le Sulk. Such a primadonna. Glad he got sent home.

I heard that Evra said there was a traitor in the squad. Does anyone know who the traitor is?

I didn't realise that there was a world cup thread. Can anyone point me there? Maybe I can find out about this Evra quote there?

I heard from my sister in France that basically the team refused to train yesterday. They were meant to have a 'public' training session- instead they signed some autographs and sat in their bus.

Coach joined them and after an hour he came out and read a public statement from the team saying something like 'we're a bunch a petulant toddlers and we've decided not to train. So there'.

The traitor story refers to the headline of Saturday's l'Equipe (the French daily sports paper)- Anelka's comment to his coach which was 'go eff yourself you son of a whore'. Initially the comment hadn't been reported and Anelka was still in the team (?????). However, after l'Equipe printed his comment as a front page headline and as he hadn't apologised the coach was forced to kick him off the team.

Evra is convinced that there was a leak from one of the players. Most French journalists had heard the whole story as soon as it happened so it's more likely that there were dozens of 'leaks' but for whatever reason Evra is convinced it's someone in the team and wants to know who it is.

Toddlers. The lot of them . They should be made to refund the poor suckers who saved up for the flights and tickets. They don't deserve supporters.

Ironically they blame the press for their poor tournament. (??????)

The players were "on strike" yesterday because the FFA sent the striker home (not the coach's decision - he said he would have kept him and left him on the sidelines)

A poll run by a television channel, asked the French people if they wanted the French team to win their next match. 7000 replies. 75% said no, their behaviour is a disgrace.

thanks anonacfr great information

I'm sure they are just as over paid as our bunch of idiots, as the whole point in them having the job is to play tournaments, I think they should all be sacked.

That would save the french FIA thousands of Euro's that would overwise be pointlessly wasted on them brats.

interesting info ahoy, when we won the world cup in 66 our players did it in there spare time, they worked normal jobs and got paid £35 a week for the second job of being a footballer practicing after work and getting time off for tournaments and the like.

how things have changed.

surely if they refuse to train they just put themselves at a disadvantage? So they're cutting their noses off to spite their faces! Does it really matter anyway? It's only football.

Hecate I think you may have forgotten the wise words of one Bill Shankly
"football's not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that"

They shouldn't be there anyway after their match with Ireland.
Petulent arses (or derrieres)

Exactly deaddai, exactly. Karma.

and gone.

This kind of attitude is so very French.

And they never miss an opportunity to go on strike. It is in their DNA.

The French have got their just deserts. They should not be in SA anyway, the Irish should be. Karma

Before we feel really smug looking at the French can I just remind people when Rio Ferdinand was banned for failing to turn up for a drugs test in 2003 (because he went shopping). The England team threatened to boycott the game against Turkey. Am I too old to remember this?

I do not think it is a French attitude, it is an arrogant, spoilt footballer attitude.

excellent point gingercat12, I had forgotten about that. I remember now how disgraceful that behaviour was at the time. The French debacle looks almost wilful, with no effort being made and no desire to win, together with maintaining such an unpopular manager. Seems that no attempt was made to create a winning spirit or a winning team.

I think its just reassuring rather than a smug feeling. We can't exactly write home about our team at the moment - theres something comforting about sharing the misery across the water.

Very true OhYouBadBadKitten

Am getting the nerves now. I have organised two meetings with my boss for this afternoon. When I am at work I completely switch off football [beating herself up]