Fair Play: Evra and other half-baked decisions

PATRICE Evra and the rest of the French team joined a lot of athletes who will have to pay for their antics for quite some time—the rest of their lives even.

Athletes are mostly required to think quickly on their feet during their games but off court, some, as Evra and Les Bleus have shown, should have spent a little more time thinking before pushing through with their actions.



Think Gilbert Arenas and that shooting joke, compounded by another shooting joke.

The result? A season-long suspension. And a potential $100-million loss.

Think Wynne Arboleda and the punch, which resulted to a season-long suspension, too, and some P3 million in forfeited pay.

Or better yet, think Manny Pacquiao and “Anak ng Kumander,” compounded by “Wapakman.” The result?
Well you know what happened.

Evra said the French team, already compounded by a lackluster showing after a controversial qualifying round, wanted to
show its sympathy with Nicolas Anelka, the striker who was sent home packing.

Anelka told their coach to “go screw yourself” and a few other choice words at halftime in their game against Mexico, which they lost, 2-0. Of course, the coach, who also showed his lack of judgment in the World Cup, wouldn’t have any of that so Anelka was sent home.

Evra and the rest didn’t like it.

And the best thing they could come up with is to boycott training, just as everyone in his country was wondering about the fitness level of the French team.

They couldn’t have just told the coach, “Hey we didn’t like what you did.”

And of course, another chief complaint was how a locker room argument between a coach and player was leaked to the press and their reply—the walkout—was done while hundreds of journalists were waiting.

I guess it’s a good thing that sport—though it may sometimes be a matter of life and death—isn’t about life and death. We’d all be dead right now.

Anyway, Evra, Anelka and bratty coach Raymond Domenech have all done Les Bleus a favor and the next members of the French team should send them flowers.

All they have to do is train, avoid fighting and win one game in the next World Cup and they’ll be three rungs better than this year’s sorry batch.

They set the bar so low, getting over it is easy. (Unless of course, it’s the Philippines; we seem to set the bar low in every World Cup. Clue: In 2002 and 2006, national TV featured local games and always ended the news, “kaya din ng Pinoy ang football.”)

UNDERDOGS GONE. One good thing about cheering for the underdogs is that you’re always exhilarated when they win but because they’re the underdogs, it rarely happens.

South Korea’s gone and the USA followed suit in the first day of the knockout stages. Both teams had great opening chances but trailed early. They got the momentum back with an equalizer, only to lose it again by surrendering a sorry goal.

Both losses are painful since they really had a chance in that match.

But that is football and in the knockout stages of the World Cup, one has to go in each game.

With South Korea and the Americans gone, the only underdogs left to cheer for are Chile, Japan and Mexico but their chances of advancing aren’t that great.

Chile, which draws inspiration from a flag rescued from the rubble of a devastating earthquake, will face Brazil; Mexico will take on dangerous Argentina; and Japan will face Paraguay.

And unless their foes make Evraesque mistakes, their World Cup campaigns are going to end. Sigh.

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