Let The Finger-Pointing Begin

I can’t remember which one of my French guys said this, but it has to be one of the most profound post-game comments I’ve ever read:

“In order to win, we need to score more goals than our opponents.”

Whoa. I’m so glad you cleared that up. Because I’d been wondering.

Actually, this is about the only thing that everybody agrees on. Well, that and the fact that Argentina was a worthy opponent who, y’know, won. And France didn’t win. On all other aspects of the match, there is a lot of disagreement.

Lots of finger-pointing at Trezeguet (more on that in a later post,) but even that’s not unanimous. Some people blaming Henry. (A lot of blame for forwards when there’s no score. Go figure.) Some blame for the midfielders for not managing to get the ball to the forwards and not being Zidane-style “playmakers.” (Newsflash, guys. Zidane’s retired. So let’s figure out something else, okay?) Some blame for the new defense. (Who I thought really held their own in a baptism under fire. After that one little goal.) General criticism all ’round for abuse of the long ball.

Also some criticism for coach Raymond Domenech for going with the usual rather than going for players who are currently playing at their best. One quote from a French blog: “A good team whose players are not in form, especially against a team like Argentina, is in fact not a good team.”

Domenech, for once, wasn’t assigning a lot of blame, at least not publicly. From eufa.com: “I saw some good things from my team,” said Domenech, for whom this was a third defeat in 35 games in charge. “We showed plenty of will putting moves together, but we failed in the decisive areas - the last pass, our finishing.”

Yup, that would sum it up.

So. Argentina’s done. (Although I’ll probably still squeeze out another post or two from it.) But let’s finish with another little quote from our Raymond, this one about the next match: “Of course no one can be happy after a defeat but, I saw this game as preparation for Lithuania. And I’m sure we’ll score over there because we have to take the points.”

Oh, good. They’ll win because they have to take the points. This means I can stop worrying now, right?