Hand of fate gives hapless France one final slap

TRUST the hapless French to blow their last chance to make a few friends at the World Cup.

A man and two goals down, they picked a fine time to discover the merest smidgen of spirit and self-respect as Franck Ribery set up Florent Malouda for their one and only goal of the tournament, a tap-in which extinguished South Africa’s fervent hopes of a miracle.

But it says everything about the no-win situation the French found themselves in yesterday that the goal was probably greeted with as deafening a silence in Paris as it was in Bloemfontein, across the Rainbow Nation and all around the whole world of football, with the obvious exception of the folk down Mexico way.