The Archive

After their embarrassing exit in the group stages in 2002, France atoned for their errors by reaching the final. Neil McCarthy gauges the reaction across the channel

There’s a hard lesson to learn from the performances in the 1998 and 2006 World Cups: the less the French public think of their team, the better they do. Victory in one World Cup then reaching another final is a record that surely any country outside Brazil would be jealous of. But as 2002 proved, it only happens to France if the supporters really believe it won’t.

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Football still isn't the number-one sport in Australia but, believes Mike Ticher, Guus Hiddink's team showed plenty of others how the game should be played

When the world seems to have changed utterly, it takes only one moment to shatter the illusion. Mine came after Craig Moore’s equalising penalty against Croatia in Stuttgart, when the animated bloke in the Socceroos shirt next to me said: “So, what happens if it’s a draw?”

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Ian Plenderleith reports on what the United States' mixed fortunes and performances mean for the future of the game in America

For USA fans, this was a story of serially thwarted joy. At the opening game against the Czechs, the war-lust words of The Star Spangled Banner were still hanging in the muggy evening air when they found themselves 1-0 down. After fighting back against Italy to equalise, they then had to absorb the impact of the red-card rush and were, within minutes, one man fewer instead. And hardly had they ceased screaming to celebrate Clint Dempsey’s levelling strike against Ghana, than host referee Dr Markus Merk awarded a penalty against Oguchi Onyewu for an offence as yet unrecognised by the rule book (“A remarkable call at this level,” coach Bruce Arena said diplomatically).

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What Nottingham needed, Al Needham decided, was a different kind of World Cup venue, without the usual nonsense and with better food and music. Did Nottingham agree?

Back in 2004, I realised that I’d outgrown standing in an Australian theme pub watching England, surrounded by meatheads bellowing “No Surrender to the IRA” (even though three months earlier you’d seen the very same people in town on St Patrick’s Day in those stupid Guinness hats). I vowed that I’d have a completely idiot-free 2006 World Cup. I’d get my own pub sorted out, get my mates in there and watch England without worrying about random violence.

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Friday June 9
Possibly because Barry Davies, the last man who could take these things seriously, is missing, the BBC only show highlights of the opening ceremony. It includes lots of men in lederhosen, some ringing large cowbells attached to the waistbands of their shorts in a vigorous and vaguely pornographic manner. There’s a parade of former World Cup-winning stars, including what Jonathan Pearce describes as “The legend that is Italy”. “Ricky Villa – still tall,” gurgles Pearce later. Pelé arrives with the trophy, but brandishes it like he’s just won it, followed by Claudia Schiffer with Sepp Blatter in tow, sporting luxuriant sideburns that give him the look of Ben Cartwright from Bonanza.

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