French cheer for S.Africa
French cheer for S.Africa
Jun 23, 2010
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Disgusted but no longer surprised by their team's dismal World Cup performance, many French fans cheered South Africa's goals as 'Les Bleus' were dumped out of the competition.
PHOTO: REUTERS
PARIS - DISGUSTED but no longer surprised by their team's dismal World Cup performance, many French fans cheered South Africa's goals as 'Les Bleus' were dumped out of the competition.
'We must be the only country in the world pleased to see its team lose,' said a 20-year-old student in a bar in central Paris after watching the French squad's humiliating 2-1 defeat.
That anger was echoed across France as football supporters digested their country's dramatic fall from the soaring heights of World Cup triumph in 1998 to the dismal depths of 2010.
The team came into the match in turmoil after a bust-up following the expulsion of star striker Nicolas Anelka from the squad for a foul-mouthed outburst at coach Raymond Domenech.
'It's pathetic, unacceptable, we'll never forgive them,' said Marie-Helene, who was among 5,000 supporters who watched the match on a giant screen at Trocadero square, just across the river from the Eiffel tower.
The crowd at Trocadero stood at the start of the game to sing the Marseillaise national anthem, but quickly the mood of football despair that has reigned in France returned. Coach Domenech, widely blamed for France's lengthy fall from grace, was booed every time his face appeared on the giant screen.
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