Escalettes please step down

So we are finally on the brink of the end of the Domenech era....and what an era it was. 3 straight major tournaments qualified for - 2 complete disasters one surprising and inspirational run to a World Cup final. But overall the reign of Domenech the Idiot will be marred by missed opportunities, head scratching decision making, poor tactics and a complete lack of strategic acumen. Otherwise it was a "good" 6 years. However, now the keys to the castle are with Laurent Blanc. The first manager from the 98ers - the generation that brought us so much happiness and for a while had France sitting clearly atop the world of footy. Winning the World Cup in 1998 and then adding a European title in 2000. Some might argue that had we had a better manager and a healthy Zidane might have added another piece of silverware in 2002. Your peers have been some of the harshest critics of the former manager - Zidane, Dugarry, Lizarazu to name a few - have been very vocal at how inept Inspector Clouseau has been at running this team.

The sad part is they have captured much of what the public thought about Domenech. Unfortunately the head of the federation refused to listen to what was being said or trust what their eyes were seeing - a manager that commands no respect and has few ideas....

A good interchange between Dugarry and Inspector Clouseau -




For those of you that do not speak french, basically Dugarry questions Domenech saying that during the Euros 2008, France played with 3 different formations in 3 games, yet Domenech had been preaching to have a "system" ready to go for the tournament. Dugarry points out, quite correctly, that Domenech rarely answers questions about football with answers about the game but instead gives some crazy response that means nothing...true. Of course there is great tension on the set, which is not surprising. Of course there is the famous exchange between Liza and Domenech right after France drew with Ireland to go to the World Cup:



Liza, never a fan of Domenechs nor someone that will back down, makes it his business to go after Domenech and with just cause. The way France had scored the goal was nothing to be proud of and it was a greater reflection of how poorly the team had been playing for the past 2 years...the irony is that Domenech states that France have 9 months to prepare in peace for the World Cup, that he is going to celebrate and be happy because France qualified for the World Cup...how did that work out?

Listening to these sound bites again, infuriates me and makes me chuckle all at the same time. Clearly Domenech had lost the support of the public, of former players, of the media and really of his team for a very long time. Unfortunately it rests on the shoulder of one Escalettes who is the only person that counts in this affair, since it was up to him to correct this wrong. Listening to his recent press conference discussing the Anelka situation only reinforces the believe that he too is at fault. He attempts to explain what happened, attempts to reason that Domenech remains in control of the squad...alas Mr Escalettes, had you listened and more importantly trusted what your eyes were telling you, you would had sacked Domenech the moment France walked off the pitch after losing to Italy in the last game of the Euros.  We all know that Domenech will be unemployed come this Wednesday, I think that you too should chose the unemployment line Mr Escalettes.