“C'est une catastrophe! C'est une catastrophe!”

I may not speak perfect French, but the commentators’ words were clear. If you ask me, however, they didn’t go far enough. A few of the locals I spoke to described it as the worst World Cup campaign the French had ever had; I personally think it might be the worst World Cup campaign anyone has ever had.

First of all, let’s get one thing clear: the only ‘curse’ that had an influence upon this result was the curse the Fédération Française de Football bestowed upon themselves by hiring, and then persisting with, stubborn comical purveyor of astrology Raymond Domenech. He may not be the only guilty party in this farce, but he is certainly the cause without being entirely responsible for the effect.

When those of you back in England deride Capello for a pair of disappointing performances, consider how much worse it could be. Here is just a small selection of the coverage Les Bleus received from the front pages of their newspapers this morning:



I am hoping to get a French speaker to interpret the small print for me, but the bigguns need no translation. The beauty of an undignified France failure is that so many of the excessive words used are so understandable to the English: catastrophe, l’humiliation, tragi-comédie, lamentablement éliminés, désastre, and my personal favourite - encore, bravo!

Unfortunately my plan to call the The Curse’s bluff didn’t quite work out. I thought I’d outwitted it once for all: my location was to be The Dubliners in Strasbourg, a genuine Irish bar run by actual Dubliners, so its website claimed. My thinking was that if Les Bleus were to perform the impossible and get out the group stages, then the locals would turn from grumpy French into jubilant French and surely party long into the night, despite being well aware that it was a charade. If the much more likely happened, and the French crashed out, then the jolly friendly loving-de-craic Irish running the place would surely celebrate excessively the exit of their play-off enemies, the horrible cheating hand of Frog merchants that they were.

As it happened, there were two problems with this theory. For one, the guys behind the bar were a combination of Scottish and French and thus weren’t quite as over the moon with France’s demise as I’d hoped. For two, the one Irishman I did encounter - the owner of the place, Paul - was undeniably odd. Striking a conversation with him was a bit like trying to dance with a horse - somewhat impossible, definitely pointless and not a lot of fun.

“So you‘re the owner of this place?” “Yeah.” “You must be enjoying this then?” “Oh… yeah.” “You see I’m writing about how the World Cup is being enjoyed in different countries, and for France I thought it’d be fun to come to an Irish place.” “Oh, OK.” “Do you feel the same sense of bitterness as your people back home towards the French?” “Not really.” “France have been terrible haven’t they?” “Yeah.” … “So, it was nice meeting you .” “OK.”

Furthermore, the French weren’t really the grumpy bastards one might have hoped. In football terms, they had probably reached the stage where they were happy to be active participants in the ‘tragi-comédie’, laughing and joking with every misplaced pass, conceded goal or nonsensical red card.

Of course not all saw the funny side. An old gentleman wandered through the bar, and muttered a comment at the screen. Yannick, a friendly youth who along with his fellow Strasbourgian brother Jilles talked me through the match, explained: “Everyone in France has an opinion. Even people who don’t like football walk past and say something. That man just said: ‘They should hang themselves.’”

Jilles spoke in glowing terms of Arsène Wenger, a Strasbourg local himself and a student of economics at the university. “He is the best French manager there is and a hero round here,” he said. “Sadly I don’t think he will ever come to manage France. I hope the last thing he does before he retires is comes to manage RC Strasbourg.” Strasbourg this season got relegated to the French 3rd Division, so Jilles may just have to remain living in hope.

But for France, a new future with Laurent Blanc awaits. “We just want to get this over with,” Jilles said of the 2010 World Cup campaign. “Blanc will be good but anyone would look good following Domenech. We just need to start again - new manager, new players, new everything.” There would be no place for Nicolas Anelka, he assured me, and probably not William Gallas either. Patrice Evra might just get a second chance.

With ten minutes to go, with the levels of shoulder shrugging on and off the pitch in Bloemfontein reaching meteoric levels, came the last bit of irony as I ordered one more Guinness. “Four Euro,” said my Scottish bartender, a pleasant €1.20 reduction: “It’s happy hour.“ Not in France it wasn’t.

Now, as I chew on by far the most sour sweets I have ever purchased on an incredibly fast and clean train roaring through the German countryside, I head to Munich. I was delighted to see Serbia beat the German side last Friday, not only because I was pleased for the Serbs but additionally because it makes today’s fixture against Ghana absolutely massive. With a point separating Ghana, Germany and Serbia, I’m still trying to calculate all the various permeations of the evening, but one thing I do know is that if the Germans win then they go through. But which is stronger? The Traveller’s Curse or the Never Write Off The Germans effect?

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Germany

Tournament odds 14/1
Remember the last time? As a Pole, it’s tough to forget Oliver Neuville’s 91st minute winner in Dortmund, following some heroic goalkeeping from Artur Boruc. What followed was entertaining: Mad Jens Lehmann’s penalty shoot-out defeat of the Argentineans in the Quarter Final and then the subsequent denial of a penalty shoot-out by Messrs Grosso and Del Piero.

Who do I recognise? Although not packed with household names, there’s still a lot of familiar names and faces. Stolen Poles Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski cause much irritation to me and my father by consistently being absolutely rubbish all year round but still scoring goals at major tournaments.

Jarek’s Prophetic Vision I fear a Germany - England Second Round match is on the horizon. If such a thing happens, I can’t exactly say it’s not going to be a Germany win on penalties can I? I can see them making the final, but losing to a more technically proficient team ala 2002 and 2008.

Jarek’s Prophetic Match Vision The atmosphere will be tense building up to the game but everyone will soon relax once one of Podolski or Klose nets in the first 15 minutes. 2-1 to Ze Germans.