France’s golden boys quick to lay into ‘smug’ Domenech

PERHAPS the biggest surprise about France’s toothless defeat to Mexico, which leaves their World Cup fate out of their hands, is that it came as no surprise at all.

After all, losing in a pre-World Cup friendly to China, ranked 84 in the world, might have given some coaches a clue that introducing a new 4-3-3 system three weeks before the tournament – after almost two years of playing with a 4-2-3-1 – was not a good idea. But then again, Raymond Domenech is not most coaches.

He was the man who famously proposed to his girlfriend Estelle Denis live on TV after France were knocked out of Euro 2008, who gave Thierry Henry the captaincy but refused to pick him for the team, instead preferring Nicolas Anelka who went almost five France games without a single shot on target.