France

Chamakh, Defoe, Van Persie … an A-Z guide on who to boo

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Image: jayneandd


So who in football makes your hackles rise? Do the cheats, the poseurs or bonebreakers enrage you most – or is it a certain ref, manager, TV pundit or Fleet Street hack? I’ll start my own list here, but everyone is welcome to add to it, filling in the missing entries or second-guessing my choices. If the responses flow, I’ll keep bringing the item back to the top of the site (and insert your updates) …


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A list of who to cheer would be shorter. I’d put Howard Webb on mine, for dealing as well as he did – give or take a couple of errors – with the uncharacteristically thuggish Dutch in the World Cup final. But then I know he’d just reward me with one of those point(s)-denying decisions of his against Sunderland. Aaron Ramsey will definitely get a Salut! Sunderland cheer, but first he must recover from that horrendous injury.

So let’s make it, for now, an A to Z of the players, management, officials or others to whom we should consider giving a torrid reception in the 2010-2011 Premier League season. I will set the ball rolling; your job is to fill in the gaps or improve on my selections.

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Eric Roy on passion and frustration in Sunderland

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Salut! Sunderland chats to Eric Roy, a man whose time at the Stadium of Light was, sadly, short but who is remembered with great fondness by many supporters …


See also: why Salut! Sunderland is supporting Nice

There are players who go for season after season for most their careers, giving their all for Sunderland. There are players whose magical – or maybe just full-blooded – performances, as goalstoppers, goalmakers or goalscorers, leave indelible memories.

And there are those recognised by discerning fans as oozing class but who, for any reason from persistent injury to managerial misjudgement, play so rarely that they must have something special to remain in people’s minds almost 10 years after moving on with only 27 games and a solitary goal to show for a season-and-a-half at the club.

Step forward Eric Roy, a midfielder possessing the sort of gifts only a fairly blinkered management team could fail to appreciate. The same Eric Roy who, in the post only a few days ago but nine or 10 years since he last kicked a ball for SAFC, received a request out of the blue from a Sunderland fan asking for his autograph.

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Luke’s world: are the French just firing Blancs?

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Luke Harvey believes the one-match ban on French players for their playground tantrum in South Africa is both ineffectual and, by punishing the (possibly) innocent, unfair. The truth remains confused: the French sports minister spoke of the bullies and the meek but players who have spoken publicly insist everyone was up for the strike with no good guy/bad guy split. Picking his way through a murky story, Luke finds it in his heart to wish Laurent Blanc well …

Laurent Blanc’s first move as manager of the French national team was a serious statement of intent. The entire 23-man squad who represented the country so poorly in South Africa would be dropped for the next match. That’s every single player, even the ones who didn’t get a chance to set foot on the pitch during the disastrous campaign …

Now it could be said that everyone was as bad as each other, that no one disembarked the coach to train on that dark day in French football history. Yet the claim could also be made that a player such as Mathieu Valbuena, young and barely capped, is highly unlikely to go against the status quo as Messrs Evra, Ribery, Henry and Cisse sat with sullen faces and folded arms in their childish protest at Nicolas Anelka’s dismissal from the national squad.

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Can Laurent Blanc clean up French football?

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French football is in an appalling state. It was bad enough, following the Thierry Henry handball, even before the team reached South Africa. Once they got there, the rot really set in, from the awful performances to Anelka’s foul-mouthed rant, from the players’ revolt to the manager Raymond Domenech’s disgraceful refusal to shake the hand of his South African counterpart. But wIll the sidelining of Domenech and a single match ban on the striking players make everything all right? …

Even I am beginning to tire of hearing about the rotten state of French football. But comments posted here recently prompt me to reflect on the latest developments.

The millionaires’ mutiny in South Africa was a shameful but logical extension of the self-centred, scowling arrogance of the modern game.

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South Africa: the World Cup in letters

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It’s over. Well done South Africa. Congratulations Spain. And here, using the letters of the host nation, is the first of our looks back on the 2010 tournament …

S

– Spain, worthy winners on the night, and just about overall, in a generally unimpressive event

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The bubble bursts for iPod-generation footballers

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At last. Something from French football to cheer about, even if it doesn’t amount to that much more than a row of haricots verts …

It won’t matter whether they are used to listening to medleys of self-composed Andy Reid comeback songs, Charles Aznavour’s greatest hits or a spot of gangster rap.

The most refreshing news from French football in months, if not years, is that in future, players from at least two Ligue 1 clubs – the champions Marseille included – have a new rule to obey.

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Crime, punishment and les Bleus: Malouda does community service

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OK, not everyone is as fascinated as Colin Randall by the continuing French football crisis. But with time to spare before the World Cup semis, it seems appropriate to dot the odd i and cross a t or two following the condemnation by Liliam Thuram of Patrice Evra …


So Thierry Henry had his meeting with Sarko, and one of the dinosaurs of the French Football Federation, its 75-year-old president Jean-Pierre Escalettes, has fallen on his sword.

Meanwhile Liliam Thuram adopts the role of stern, onlooking head of (a more glorious) history, and Florent Malouda puts in some post-mutiny community service in Haiti.

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French farce: should Patrice Evra be banished from international football?

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This clip shows why Patrice Evra, of Manchester United and France, is ranked among the best footballers in the world. There is also a case for saying the “and France” part of that description should now be considered a thing of history …

Here in France, the inquest continues at various levels, from grass roots to parliament, into the pathetic failure of the French squad to rise at any stage above a surly, snarling and professionally embarrassing presence at the 2010 World Cup.

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Ha’way Paraguay, ciao Italy

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Just the shortest of postings to congratulate Paraguay on their brilliant feat in topping a group also containing the, er, mighty Italy.

It was almost as pleasing to see the Italians finish bottom and follow France out of the World Cup.

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Good riddance

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It used to be early exits of England, after embarrassing outbreaks of hooliganism, that people most wanted to happen at the major international football events.

Now, it’s the turn of the French. And that’s just how the French themselves see it.

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