After the Deluge
It's hard to imagine the aftermath of France's shocking exit from the 2002 World Cup being any worse than the Korean campaign itself, but that's exactly what's happened.
The Bleus were the first defending World Cup champions to fail to win a game in their title defense, but the players shrugged off their performance, rushed off to vacation and got on with their lives.
They've gotten off lightly compared with the way French soccer executives and coaches have been hammered for their handling of the debacle.
Roger Lemerre, the French head coach, refused to resign, sticking to the contract extension he signed shortly before the finals.
Aime Jacquet, who coached France at the 1998 World Cup and serves as technical director of the French national team program (DTN), refused to comment on what went wrong in Korea or what should be done next.
No one has looked worse than Claude Simonet, president of the French federation (FFF). Simonet waited weeks before firing Lemerre, then looked foolish by promoting the candidacy of former French international Jean-Francois Domergue, who has no First Division coaching experience and wasn't available. (Domergue is coaching promoted Le Havre.)
The notion that Simonet and other FFF executives were living high off past French success was reinforced when the Journal du Dimanche published a copy of a dinner check Simonet picked up during his stay at the French team's hotel in Seoul: $6,881 for a party of five, including almost $5,000 for a bottle of French wine.
By all accounts, Jacques Santini, Lemerre's successor, is the right choice. He had experience with the DTN as a staff coach in the mid-'70s. He led Lyon to the French League Cup title in 2001 and its first French League title in 2002.
Santini, 50, had the support of Michel Platini, the three-time European Player of the Year and former French national team coach who now is the wise man of French soccer much like Franz Beckenbauer is in Germany.
Few expect a long-term decline in French fortunes as took place in the late 1980s, after Platini retired as a player.
Santini praised the attitude of the French players after their shock elimination.
''They showed that they were ready for a new start and that they were accepting their responsibility for the World Cup failure,'' he said.
France has an easy European Championship qualifying group (Slovenia, Israel, Cyprus and Malta), and it has many young stars waiting in the wings.
But Santini's legitimacy has been undermined by the long process Simonet oversaw to fire and replace Lemerre. In particular, Santini will have to win the support of the powerful DTN coaching staff.
''My first reaction is a huge disappointment because we had two high-standard candidates coming from the national coaching staff, Raymond Domenech and Rene Girard,'' Jacquet told Le Monde. ''It's like a second defeat after our World Cup failure.''
Domenech, the long-time French under-21 coach, and Girard, Lemerre's assistant, were among the other three finalists. Frenchman Philippe Troussier, who coached Japan the last four years, was the fourth candidate.
It's essential that the French national team regain its credibility because it is the bright light of French soccer.
French clubs have fallen far behind their counterparts in Europe's other major soccer nations, prompting a major exodus of players abroad. The French First Division (recently renamed Ligue 1) saw a drop in average attendance (22,000 a game) after six straight years of increases.
The one-two punch of the Bleus' terrible World Cup and FFF's poor reaction won't help matters.
by Soccer America Managing Editor Paul Kennedy