Renaissance

Sometimes two words are all you need. Here's Thierry Henry puttiing Robbie Savage in his place. I do admire that kind of economy of words, much as Oliver Reed might have admired a well made lemon cordial, but I'm only mentioning it here because Henry's relaxed demeanour speaks to a French confidence that contrasts dramatically with their embarrassed and petulant display in South Africa four years ago.


Do you remember France the last time? A feeble draw against Uruguay, a loss to Mexico then another, humiliating defeat by the hosts.

Manager Raymond Domenech had already decided to leave the job after the tournament, and it's fair to say there was no desperate clameur for him to change his mind. At a pre-tournament press conference a Chinese TV reporter asked him, when a frog is put in boiling water, it doesn't feel the heat until it gets too hot. How warm is the water for you now? French Twitter spoke as one. Il a chaud! Tres chaud!

The frog thing isn't actually true, but that's a brilliant question anyway. I haven't been able to find the name of the TV reporter, but I'd love to see her on Match of the Day, asking Alan Pardew how hot his bath was. And you could offer her and Henry as evidence against any attempt to claim that football was always some lumpen inarticulate thing. Whether both of them together outweigh Robbie Savage is another question, of course.

Domenech was so disliked in the French squad that they actually went on strike. Or didn't, depending on whose version of events you believe. The story at the time was that during the interval in the Mexico game Nicholas Anelka, not exactly a one man charm offensive himself, said something along the lines of Va te faire enculer, fils de pute! not directly to Domenech, but loud enough to be overheard. This roughly translates as go fuck yourself, son of a whore! which isn't usually considered the best way to speak to your manager, even indirectly. Domenech substituted him and thought that was an end to it, but after the game it came out in the press, and the French President heard about it and told Anelka to apologise. Anelka refused and was sent home.

What happened next depends on who you believe, but it's commonly held that the French squad refused to train under Domenech. They were visited by French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot, who smoothed things over with a speech that apparently had the team in tears. This is a touchingly French thing in itself. It's hard to imagine Helen Grant making Leighton Baines cry.

After the tournament, Laurent Blanc took over the squad. He arranged for a symbolic suspension of all 23 players in the squad in one friendly match against Norway, then led them to the quarter finals at Euro 2012. He left and Didier Deschamps took them through qualification via the playoffs to here. Blanc and Deschamps are both veterans of 98, which gives teams they lead a certain cachet in France.

And look at them now. They gave Honduras the first real drubbing of the tournament last night, beating them 3-0. It was expected, but in a World Cup where the unexpected has constantly happened doing the expected becomes a statement in itself.

They've got a comparatively young squad (21st out of 32 by average age), with new stars that weren't compromised by the Domenech regime. Benzema, having perhaps benefited from not being selected in 2010, won the Champions League this year with Real Madrid, and was involved in all three goals last night. You'll be familiar with names like Giroud, Lloris and Sagna, but may not have come across Paul Pogba of Juventus, their new prodigy. He nearly had a David Beckham moment, lashing out at a Honduran defender after he'd been taken out, but survived with a booking.

So a new era for the French then. Excuse me now, I have to go and watch the Henry and Savage clip again.