French Letter

The much-coveted title of longest-running soap opera in football is shared around a variety of ongoing sagas - usually, it must be said, concerning Tottenham and Newcastle - but the Sunset Beach of those soap operas right now is the will they, won't they relationship between Raymond Domenech and his employers. Will they or won't they sack him, that is. It's starting to look like they probably will. Mind you, I said that in the summer.

In my defence, though (a sentence opening that leads us naturally to Domenech's most famous declaration: "When I have a Leo in my defence, I've always got my gun ready," said a man happy to pick Jean-Alain Boumsong because the bumbling centre-back was born in the run-up to Christmas), I still believe that was the overriding feeling within the French Football Federation, and I'm not quite sure what stayed their hand. Pity, perhaps? After all, our Raymond had just proposed to his girlfriend on TV. And been rejected.

Whatever the reason for his pardon, the sword of Damocles has been hanging over the mouton-haired man from Lyon ever since. Everyone was aware going into Saturday's game against Romania that Domenech's future was up for discussion at the FFF this week; the speculation was that he would be fired even if he could pull off a win. He didn't, if you were wondering. His team went 2-0 down before coming back to salvage a draw.

That the opponents were Romania can hardly have helped, bringing back painful memories of the worst match at Euro 2008, and one that typified France's concrete-boots perfromances from the summer. "We're still boring Europe" declared Saturday's L'Equipe.

Press scorn is nothing new. Domenech's tactical naivety has been widely discussed, but it's more his approach to man-management and a string of strange selection decisions that have seen him under prssure for more than two years. Even our own papers have been in on the act. 'No one has quite worked out whether France reached the 2006 World Cup final because of Domenech or despite him,' said The Independent, quite accurately, earlier in the year.

Let's have a quick run down of some of the highlights. There was the public announcement before the last World Cup that Gregory Coupet was back up to Barthez and no more. Fine, the manager's decision, but one that could have been handled better by speaking to the player before the papers. Coupet promptly stormed out of the camp.

That came a week after Ludovic Giuly, a popular man in France who had just put in a season of match-changing performances for the European champions, found out from the press that he hadn't made the squad. "If a player gets injured at the last minute, well, too bad for Domenech," sniffed Giuly, who would have been willing to wait on the standby list if the manager had asked him in person. "The most important thing is to talk with the players, but he does not dare to do it," complained the forward. Still, the episode produced F365's Quote Of The Year 2006: "I am off to Australia for a month. I will do some canoeing among crocodiles, kangaroos and penguins," decided Giuly, so it wasn't all bad.

Then the astrology. Always the astrology. As well as undermining the likes of William Gallas, Gaël Clichy, Julien Escudé, Mikaël Silvestre and Sébastien Squillaci with his policy on Leo-born defenders - "I know he's going to want to show off at one moment or another and cost us," is the reason for the gun-carrying, by the way - a dislike of Scorpios (they always work against him, apparently) meant Bobby Pires was also an unwelcome and eventually ousted member of the squad.

Domenech didn't understand what the fuss was all about. "All parameters have to be considered and I have added one by saying there is astrology involved," he explained, doing himself very few favours in the cynical world of football, and particularly French football. But the truth is football is a results-driven business, and no-one would care if Domenech had been getting the results. He hasn't.

That sounds bizarre when you consider his side were a penalty shoot-out away from winning the World Cup, but a growing number of people think those Zidane-inspired performances against Spain, Brazil and Portugal make up 270 minutes that have kept Domenech in a job for a further two years. Qualification for the tournament was seriously in doubt, but they reached the final. Great. The problem is qualification for Euro 2008 was also seriously in doubt, and France's performances there showed why. Since then they've managed to lose 3-1 to an Austria side that was held by the Faroe Islands this week.

Domenech does still enjoy some popular support, though. I have French friends who look at me in disgust for questioning him - and point out, quite reasonably, that Messrs Gallas and Silvestre have been known to have the odd moment of madness in defence, whether their star-sign has anything to do with it or not - although I suspect it's more an issue of national pride and when the Englishman's back is turned they too wonder what David Trezeguet did to annoy him so much. Or maybe it's just that Gerard Houllier is the likely replacement.

Still, the support from the man on the boulevard isn't echoed by the FFF, whose president Jean-Pierre Escalettes offered only, "We'll see," when asked by TF1 about the coach's future. "The federal council meeting is on the 15th which is not too far away. We have to concentrate on Tuesday's match against Tunisia. Then we will see the decisions the council will take."

The problem, of course, is that if France stick with Domenech, I'll almost certainly be able to publish this same article again in six months. In this day and age, failing to categorically back a manager is akin to undermining him. Domenech, much like most of his teams of late, simply can't win.

Adam Fraser