foot - top four worst defeats ever

1. France-Germany, Seville, 1982
The perfect tragedy, like there are perfect storms. Cannot be topped, never.
You are a twelve-year-old boy, living in Gueret, not really a football fan. France is nowhere on the football map, qualified on a lucky draw, allowed to play the German ogre in semi-finals. Then the ogre is almost humiliated, led 3-1 after a fantastic goal by a Guadeloupean defender named Marius Tresor – can you believe such a name. So many things happened. Too many. 20-years-old Amoros hits the crossbar from long range; a brave Battiston – Platini’s best pal - is almost literally killed by mad goalkeeper Schumacher. Extra time. After coming back from 1-3 to 3-3, Germans win at the penalties, with a final shot by an out-of-this-world freak, the perfect Goliath, Horst Hrusbesh – can you believe such a name. You feel so sad and distressed. When the game is over and you find yourself washed out on your sofa, you love football for life and you come to realise life is unfair and France are losers. Magnificent, romantic losers. As far as I am concerned, I belong to the Sevilla generation.

2. France-Germany, Mexico, 1986
Now you are 16, living near Paris. In quarter finals, two days before, your team played the best football match ever against the great Brazil. The Platini generation is the top of its game. It could have been 5-5. But now under the overwhelming heat, the French are tired; they had two days less to rest after quarter-finals. Joel Bats makes a horrible mistake on Brehme’s free-kick. You would have tolerated losing to that magnificent Brazil – it was a close, fair, beautiful game – but losing again against Germany…. Contrary to the game four years before, this is not a dramatic tragedy but a dull, exasperating non-game, between two uninspired sides. You lose again. I still can see a disgusted, frustrated Platini sarcastically faking a shot into the ball which is in goalkeepers’ hands, in injury time. You are left empty, sad, cursed. Of course France had won the European Cup in Paris two years ago, so we are not losers after all, but that was the opportunity to heal the Sevilla wound. So the Sevilla wound would never go away. Even the 1998-2000 triumph did not erase the 1982 scar for the Sevilla generation.

3. Arsenal-Barcelona, Paris, 2006

Now you are 36. Arsenal FC is playing mighty Barca in the final of the Champion’s League in Paris. But now you live in Islington, North London, home of the Gunners. You are watching the game at home with some friends and the Arsenal shirt. After the dismissal of Jens Lehman, Sol Campbell scores a superb header. At 10 against 11, Arsenal leads 1-0 up to the 78th minute. Defence is heroic. Barca is scarcely dangerous. Then Almunia screws up twice and we lose 2-1. You are left crushed, gutted.

4. France-Bulgaria, Paris 1993

You are 23; you live in Guadeloupe. Your boss told everyone to take the afternoon off because the big game is showed at 15.00 there, of course. Perfect nightmare scenario. France had to secure one draw in its two last games at home, against Israel and Bulgaria, to qualify for the world cup 1994 in the USA. Remember we had not qualified for the 1990 world cup in Italy. But this time we did well in qualifications – we just need one point in two games. First we blew it against Israel. Defeat in Paris against Israel. Then against Bulgaria we are one up. Then the Bulgarian score an equalizer. At 1-1, we are still qualified. Then comes the 92nd minute, twenty seconds to go and we are qualified. Then the impossible happens. We lose possession stupidly, fast Bulgarian attack and they score casually, and the referee whistle the end of the world. Roland and Larqué cannot find their words. It just cannot have happened.

Among the most painful defeats, I would add Marseille-Belgrade 1991. Nobody knew at the time that Tapie’s OM was a bunch of cheaters. OM controlled the game, with lots of chances, but it ends at 0-0 and Marseille loses at the penalties. France-Denmark 1992 in the European Championship was pretty bad too, because coach Platini side had done splendidly in the qualification.
On the other hand, France-Denmark 2002, and France-Greece 2004 came as reliefs. We were so bad during those competitions that it had to stop – someone had to finish us off.

'A short story of tractors in the Ukrainian'

En France les romans sont d’abord publiés dans des gros volumes très chers avec des couvertures ‘sobres’ et une jaquette prétentieuse, puis quelques mois plus tard dans des collections de poche, beaucoup moins chères. Ici les bouquins paraissent dans un format intermédiaire, et les couvertures sont toujours illustrées. En France on aime bien se moquer des couvertures brillantes, roses, en relief, des romans d’amour d’américains ; encore une preuve de la vulgarité des anglosaxons. C'est vrai que presque tous les livres anglosaxons ont droit à une couverture illustrée, avec, des la deuxieme édition, les éloges des critiques écrit dessus. Cela n’est pas déshonorant, ni pour l’auteur, ni pour l’éditeur de placer un dessin divertissant et coloré en couverture d’une histoire divertissante et colorée. En France on pense qu’un bon livre ou un bon vin n'ont pas besoin d'un emballage attrayant. Chiant est synonyme de bon goût et de qualité.

Tout cela pour dire que c’est la couverture de ce livre qui a attiré mon attention, puis la quatrième de couverture.
Dans ma série ‘petits livres drôles, touchants, courts et faciles à lire en anglais’, après Paasilinna et Mark Haddon (janvier), voici Marina Lewycka.

‘A short history of tractors in the Ukrainian’ ah oui c’est le titre aussi qui m’a plu tout de suite, ça pourrait le titre d’un film de Kaurismaki.

Alors citons-la, la quatrieme de couverture: ‘Sisters Nadezhda and Vera must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré eighty-four-year-old engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she stops at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth, and a British passport. She explodes in their lives like a pink fluffy grenade, churning up the murky water, giving the family ghosts a kick up of the backside’.

Il parait que ça a déjà été traduit dans 27 langues, donc je suppose en français mais croyez c’est super facile et sympa en anglais.