Soccer: France go home branded bad losers

Typically, after a week of strikes, resignations and accusations, France left the World Cup with a row.

As if he did not have enough enemies, Raymond Domenech finished by rounding on his South Africa counterpart, Carlos Alberto Parreira, for comments in November that, because of Thierry Henry's handball against Ireland, France did not deserve to be at the World Cup.

On the displays they have produced here, it would be hard to argue that Parreira was wrong.

"I went to greet Domenech [at] the final whistle as a matter of politeness because I knew he was stepping down," said Parreira.

"But he told me I had offended the French team. I said I had no idea what he was talking about, but he mentioned what I said about the 'Hand of Gaul' incident. It is just lamentable."

Lamentable describes everything about what must be the worst World Cup campaign ever staged by a major sporting nation.

The strike action on the Field of Dreams training pitches; the dressing-room rows; the dismissal of Nicolas Anelka; the decision to appoint Patrice Evra captain in place of Henry and then strip him of it before this latest debacle.

On Tuesday, the French Sports Minister, Roselyne Bachelot, came to Bloemfontein to tell the squad that they were "no longer heroes in the eyes of the nation's children". They fly to Paris today, making the 10-hour journey in economy.

In contrast, South African President Jacob Zuma went to the dressing rooms at the Free State Stadium to congratulate his players on their 2-1 win.

Even before kick-off in a match France surrendered before the interval, there was a final confrontation.

"Did some players refuse to take part in this game? Well not exactly," said Domenech. "But Eric Abidal came to me and said he was no longer in a fit mental state to play."

Neither were his colleagues - except perhaps Franck Ribery, who led a counterattack of sorts that created a goal for Malouda, ending what had seemed a relentless South African charge towards the landslide victory that would have sent them through on goal difference.

The men in whom Domenech trusted at the end were a strange bunch. The ponderous Andre-Pierre Gignac was replaced at halftime, while Yoann Gourcuff - victim of most of the poison at their base in Kynysa - was sent off early for aiming an elbow into MacBeth Sibaya's neck.

Domenech placed his head in his hands. He spent most of the match impotently surveying a wreckage that was partly his own making - just as Thomas Andrews, the Titanic's architect, stared at a picture of Plymouth Sound as his grand design went down.

Finally, and hopelessly late, Domenech brought on Henry. Since France were two goals down and minus Gourcuff, it was asking a lot for him to change things.

France cracked early as the hosts, who 11 days ago had travelled to Johannesburg expecting to be humiliated, produced a performance worthy of an African team in the first African World Cup.

Hugo Lloris went to punch Siphiwe Tshabalala's corner and missed, allowing Bongani Khumalo to rise above Abou Diaby and head home.

The stadium exploded, and when Katlego Mphela bundled in the second, created by Tshabalala's cross, they needed just three more goals, from either a South African or Uruguayan boot.

Uruguay broke through in Rustenburg while here Mphela had two chances, driving one venomously on to the post and the other, from a tighter angle, into the side-netting.

Then came the French goal and the acceptance that there were no more miracles.

There were many who wondered why South Africa had chosen to stage their decisive fixture at a rugby stadium in the heart of the old Afrikaner republic. There, said one taxi driver, "they do not use the vuvuzela - they sing".

And when South Africa were two up and heading for redemption, they began a beautiful rhythmic chant, one of the sounds of the World Cup.

- INDEPENDENT