The French team returned home to Paris Monday to a considerably muted response from what some might have expected. Only about 100 fans, most of them children, awaited the teams’ landing at Charles de Gaulle. Following the sending off of their hero Zinedine Zidane, French spirits were understandably low. The scheduled parade down the Champs Elysees boulevard was cancelled by France coach Raymond Domenech. The press, meanwhile vilified Zidane for his inexplicable behavior. L’Equipe sported a headline that read “Eternal Regrets.” The paper compared him to great sports legends like Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens, but none of them “ever broke the rules the way you did.” Finally, they asked, how he would explain his actions to his four sons. “It was the last image you left as a soccer player, Zinedine, How could this happen to the man you are?” French president Jacques Chirac, speaking to French television in Berlin, tried to remain positive, praising Zidane as a man who throughout his career ” incarnated the best values of sport, the best human qualities and who did honour to French sport and simply honour to France.”