French Captain doesn't play...

In a follow-up to yesterday's story; the latest breaking news before the South Africa - France World Cup game today is that Patrice Evra, France's captain, has either refused to play in the match or has been dropped and is thus excluded from their line-up...

It is latest event in a series of self-created mishaps that have derailed France's World Cup campaign, caused French football fans to turn against their team and turned France into the laughing stock of world football...

In 1998, France won the World Cup and their players will forever be remembered by the French public; this year's crop of players are likely to be remembered just as long but for altogether different reasons!

France - Will they, won't they play South Africa?

image, Reuters

If you're an England football fan, utterly depressed by the insipid nature of the team's play, uninspired tactics and general woefulness, then pretty much the only thing still keeping you going each day is the way in which the French national football team is spectacularly imploding at this year's World Cup...

It all started on Thursday when, at half time in the France-Mexico game, Nicolas Anelka and national coach, Raymond Domenech, had a bit of a spat - which is to say, Anelka told Domenech to 'go fuck yourself' and was promptly substituted for the second half.

Now, in most teams, that would be that. Player gets angry, says something stupid. By the end of the match, angry player is less angry and sheepishly apologises to the manager; player then gets a slap on the wrist, some kind of fine, and everything is copacetic.

However, that's not quite how things went for the French team. In their case, angry player remains angry and refuses to apologise. Football Federation decide angry player is disruptive influence and kick angry player out of the squad. This makes for an angry squad. Angry squad refuses to train in protest. This makes for angry Football Federation team director. Angry team director quits. This makes for angry French nation who are not used to their football team humiliating them in quite this way...

And, with things looking like they couldn't get any worse, it today got worse when there was a clear hint from their manager that some of the team may go so far as to refuse to play against South Africa.

England fans can briefly revel in a bit of schadenfreude but will, more than likely, be looking at the England team that performed so appallingly against Algeria and wishing that a few of the England squad would decide to boycott the next game...

The World Cup dominates...

Image, Reuters

Unless you have been hiding underneath a rock, you can't have failed to notice that the World Cup is now officially upon us...

South Africa opened the tournament with an enthusiastic, but slightly naive, display of football against Mexico. For much of the first half, their defence seemed quite content to give the Mexican attackers as much space as they wanted and it was, therefore, a little surprising to all concerned that, despite some good chances and a goal ruled out for offside (which may explain the flurry of google searches on 'football offside rule'), Mexico and South Africa went in level at half-time. It was even more surprising when, ten minutes into the second half, Siphiwe Tshabalala rifled a stunning left foot shot into the net to give South Africa the lead. For a while it seemed that South Africa were going to get their fairytale beginning but, in the 79th minute, Mexico's Marquez levelled the score and it ended 1-1.

In comparison, the second match of the day - between Uruguay and France - was the sort of game that people who don't like football use as an example of why they don't like football. And they have a point. Uruguay were game but lacked the necessary class, while many of France's players looked like they'd clearly rather be somewhere other than the pitch. A drab and largely dull game, it could perhaps be prescribed to insomniacs for its soporific qualities. It ended nil-nil, which, quite frankly, flattered all involved...

But, while most of the world was getting overexcited at the prospect of the World Cup, a large number of people in the US were far more interested in January Jones - who was involved in a car crash and then fled the scene, blaming paparazzi (note to self: try this next time something like this happens) - and John Goodman who appears to have lost about 30% of his body weight.

Tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if the US joins the rest of the world in going utterly World Cup crazy as Team USA gear up for their big battle with England. Although, I wouldn't like to bet serious money on it, to be honest...

The Weekly Round Up...

While drinking a cup of tea today, I came to a decision about a suitable direction for the Saturday edition of Pulse of the Net. I figured that it might be interesting to do a weekly round-up article that sampled what it was that a range of different countries were busily searching for over the last seven days...

Rigidly adhering to alphabetical ordering, I first chose to swing by our antipodean friends in Australia and found them curiously obsessed with the Dukan Diet. This is, apparently, the diet that the French have 'been keeping secret for years' - although the article then goes on to mention how it spawned '200 websites, forums and blogs' (so, remind me, if I ever need to tell someone a really important secret, not to tell it to anyone French). Apparently, the Australians also wanted in on the secret this week...

The French, however, seemed entirely unconcerned that the secret they had been guarding for so long was out and, instead, were spending much of their search engine time checking out extreme skater Taig Khris as he attempted to break the world record for free fall with skates. Which apparently he did, from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Although it appears to be a fine line between free fall skating and simply falling. Watch for yourself and see what you think...

Italians, meanwhile, had no time for either diets or skaters - they were far more interested in Social Plus, a browser extension that, apparently, adds a load of spiffy new features to ensure you can waste even more time fiddling with Facebook options than ever before. I would install and test it for you but, frankly, I've screwed my PC up far too many times already and don't want to risk buggering it up again (since it would rather limit my blogging abilities). Let me know if you use it and like it...

Finally, in the United Arab Emirates, they have a different kind of technical concern as one of the biggest searches was for Hotspot Shield - which promises to protect privacy, hide your IP address and a whole host of other things that are rather useful in a country that censors internet access to prevent people happening upon anything political or to do with alcohol, gambling or pornography. Again, like with Social Plus, I don't intend to install it and find out just how effective it is...

...although, since the one of the other popular searches in the United Arab Emirates in the last week has been 'Youtube Sexiest Video', I'm guessing pretty effective indeed!

More weekly world round-ups next week...