Le Bleus act like brats
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But it is not all the coach's fault.
His bosses at the French Football Federation must also shoulder some blame for having faith in Domenech for so long. They should have ditched him after France flunked out of Euro 2008, when he made a fool of himself by proposing marriage to his partner, Estelle Denis, on live television just moments after his side was eliminated.
Domenech was utterly discredited in the eyes of many in France after that. It has been open-season against him, and by extension his players, ever since. Fans and the media in France, joined by 1998 veterans-turned-pundits like retired defender Bixente Lizarazu, have made life insufferable for him and his team, with constant and unrelenting criticism. For months, they have been booed and whistled when they play. They are such easy targets that even Sarkozy's sports minister had a crack at the team ahead of the World Cup, needling it for the lavish accommodation it chose in South Africa.
In short, nothing the players or Domenech do is ever good enough. The squad's biggest crime has been failing to live up to the almost impossibly high standards set by the winners of 1998. Zidane, now retired, has shown up here in South Africa, his presence alone a reminder of everything that the team of 2010 is not. That 1998 veteran Laurent Blanc will take over from Domenech after this World Cup is more proof of the enduring power - and burden - of that achievement 12 years ago. Inner city riots in 2005 also blew apart the myth that France bought into in 1998 of a multi-ethnic country living in fraternal and equitable harmony.
So, finally, the team has cracked under the weight of all this history, the expectation, the intense pressures of a World Cup and Domenech's inability to turn the French into winners again.
All that remains now is the morbid fascination of seeing how France will play in its last Group A match against South Africa.
France's players have performed so badly on and off the field at the World Cup that it is anybody's guess what will happen on Tuesday. Maybe they will rouse themselves and try to save some honor. Or perhaps they will just heap more disgrace upon themselves by going out with a sulky whimper.
Either way, the spirit of 1998 is truly dead.
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