French Hopes Nil and Void
When it was all over, when the World Cup had slipped from France’s grasp and the world champions were world champions no more, Marcel Desailly and Djibril Cisse made a symbolic trek to one corner of Munhak Stadium here.
There, France’s past and France’s future met France’s fans, and the two players’ actions captured the heartbreak of Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to Denmark that ended the defending champions’ dream of repeating their feat of four years earlier.
Desailly, the 33-year-old Chelsea defender who was the rock upon which France’s 1998 title rested, raised his hands and applauded the fans, thanking them for their support in what had been a disastrous title defense--France going 0-2-1, scoring no goals and becoming the first world champion eliminated in the first round since Brazil in 1966.
One of the fans, looking directly at Desailly, spread his arms wide and shrugged his shoulders in Gallic fashion, as if to ask, “Why, what went wrong?”
Desailly had no answer.
Cisse, the 20-year-old Auxerre forward who represents the next generation of French stars, made a different gesture.
Instead of applauding, he peeled off his national team jersey and hurled it up into the bank of blue-clad fans, as if to rid himself of any ties to this debacle.
Cisse’s World Cup will come later, perhaps in 2006, perhaps in 2010.
The defeat, which followed an earlier one to Senegal and a tie with Uruguay, left all of France stunned, the extent of the blow to the country’s collective psyche so evident that French President Jacques Chirac felt compelled to address it.
Chirac sent a letter to Desailly, the French captain, saying he was “deeply disappointed” in the outcome, but proud of what “Les Bleus” had accomplished.
“We cannot forget the marvels that you brought to life in our country in 1998 and 2000 [when France added a European championship to its world championship],” Chirac wrote. “You must now conquer this defeat and rejoin the path to the heights of French football which must remain a model for the world.”
It will take the players some time to absorb the shock, however. On Tuesday, they could only look to the past, not the future.
“I would never have imagined that we could be eliminated in the first round,” said inspirational playmaker Zinedine Zidane, who returned from injury to try to raise France from the dead but was largely ineffective against an organized and determined Danish team.
“Now we must do something,” Zidane said. “We must be able to turn the page. All of us have to ask ourselves questions to try to understand what happened here.”
France came into the game needing to win by two goals to salvage a place in the second round. It didn’t happen. Dennis Rommedahl put Denmark ahead in the 22nd minute and Jon Dahl Tomasson scored in the 67th.
France’s forward line, even with a half-fit Zidane supplying the passes, simply did not have the ability to solve the defensive puzzle posed by the Danes, no matter how much the crowd of 48,100 cheered Zidane’s every move.
“When they scored their second goal, we needed much more than a miracle,” French defender Bixente Lizarazu said. “Over the last six years, we have become used to winning, we always had luck.
“Now we don’t really understand what happened here.”
France was held scoreless for 270 minutes in the World Cup and striker David Trezeguet was at a loss to explain why.
“We did not play that badly,” he said. “We created many opportunities to score--even today we hit the crossbar again [on shots by Desailly and Trezeguet]. But when it doesn’t want to go into the net there is not much you can do. We could have spent two more hours playing without being able to score a goal.”
With Robert Pires lost to injury before the World Cup began, with Zidane sidelined by injury when the team arrived in South Korea and with Thierry Henry suspended after getting a red card in the Uruguay tie, France did not have the players who could take their places.
Coach Roger Lemerre conceded that his team deserved to be ousted.
“We did not deserve to go through,” he said. “We must accept defeat like we accepted victory. It’s a very tough day for myself and for all the fans.”
The victory by Denmark left it in first place in Group A, from which it advances along with Senegal to the round of 16.
“We had a good day,” Danish Coach Morten Olsen said. “The team played with a lot of confidence and, especially, a lot of discipline.”
It will need both qualities in the second round, where it will play either Argentina, England or Sweden on Saturday in Niigata, Japan.
The French, meanwhile, were making plans to fly back to Paris today.
The players will not be met by joyous, cheering throngs at the airport or along the Champs-Elysees.
Those days are over.
“It’s the end of a beautiful story,” Trezeguet said.
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*--* First-Round Flops Other notable teams that did not make it out of group play at the World Cup: 1950: England The United States’ 1-0 upset of England has been well documented. But it was another 1-0 loss, to Spain, that eliminated the English 1966: Brazil and Italy The defending champion, Brazil, lost 3-1 decisions to Hungary and Portugal and left complaining about rough play. Italy didn’t make it out of the first round in five of seven tournaments between 1950-74, but this one was particularly mortifying, as the Italians were sent home by North Korea in a 1-0 upset 1994: Colombia The trendy pick as a darkhorse favorite, Colombia first lost to Romania, then was stunned by the United States, 2-1 1998: Spain Spain’s reputation for underachieving once against played out when the top-seeded Spaniards blew a one-goal lead late in a 3-2 loss to Nigeria and tied Paraguay, 0-0
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