In case you didn’t know it, France is out. Dehors, rien à voir. The coun­try which won the World Cup in 1998 was elim­i­nated very early in this year’s World Cup.

French don’t seem sur­prised nor par­tic­u­larly angry but rather gen­er­ally accept­ing. It doesn’t mean they aren’t com­plain­ing though. The loss of the French team, “les bleus” is seen as another symp­tom of how bad France is doing these days, both polit­i­cally and eco­nom­i­cally. It is becom­ing a state affair now as Sarkozy appar­ently demanded to have a lit­tle chat with the team upon their return to France. The whole sit­u­a­tion seems so child­ish and pathetic: over­paid play­ers went go on strike and refused to train, Nico­las Anelka told the coach to “fuck off”, Sports Min­is­ter Rose­lyne Bach­e­lot was dis­patched to South Africa to talk of “dis­ci­pli­nary action” , spon­sors dropped the team… much psy­chodrama and zero result — oh so French.

In light of the fiasco, French are almost glad their team is out. Non merci, no more embarrassment.

We went to a bar to watch England-Slovakia and it turned out to be a busy place. An Eng­lish fan was there, he sat sto­ically for hours and barely moved. A few Amer­i­cans showed up too and loudly sup­ported U.S which was play­ing against Algeria.

You can fol­low our French trip here on Flickr: France (2010).

Focused on the Game

A Sto­ical Fan

The Day France Lost… Again

In a Bar

Watch­ing the Game

U.S Score

Gooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!

Related arti­cles:

1. A French Market
2. French Bak­eries
3. A French Protest
4. French Pas­tries
5. A French Castle