Polokwane: France defender Patrice Evra gave a damning verdict on his team after its 2-0 World Cup defeat to Mexico, saying he feels like France has become "a small football nation, and it hurts."
Thursday's defeat left France with only one point from two games in Group A, and on the brink of elimination from the World Cup ahead of next week's final group matches, because both Mexico and Uruguay have four points each and require only a draw on Tuesday to progress.
"I am deeply upset, even if it won't change anything," Evra said. "Tonight I feel a bit like (we are) a small football nation, and it hurts."
France was eliminated from the European Championship two years ago at the group stage without winning a match, and Evra fears the team is still just as bad now.
"When you go out of the Euro in the first round, and then you are about to go out again, you really don't want to think about football anymore," Evra said.
Evra had previously talked defiantly about team spirit and how the team was ready to make an impression at the World Cup, despite many observers tipping France to do poorly because of Raymond Domenech's coaching and only scraping through qualifying.
"There is nothing to say except that it is a huge catastrophe tonight. I honestly didn't see it coming," Evra said. "What hurts is that we didn't know how to react, or how to equalize, and then they killed us with that second goal."
Evra stopped short of blaming the beleaguered Domenech for the team's total inability to win matches, or even score goals. But he refused to protect his players and said harsh words may be exchanged in the next few days.
"What's the problem? We're not a good team. If we don't win, it means we're not a good team," he said. "We will speak to each other during the week. I'm not going to start telling you (the press) what the problem is, I'll tell those concerned."
Unlike his club career in which he has won Premier League titles and the Champions League with Manchester United, Evra's France career has been miserable so far and he faces a huge task in lifting the players for Tuesday's game against the hosts.
"I'm disgusted, and we owe it to ourselves to beat South Africa," he said. "But as for miracles, I don't believe in them too much."
Domenech dropped midfielder Yoann Gourcuff as he tinkered with the formation that failed to produce any attacking threat in last week's 0-0 draw with Uruguay.
Watching from the bench, Gourcuff gave a scathing assessment of his teammates.
"We couldn't pass the ball properly, they closed us down straight away," he said. "We felt that Mexico were starting to get on top of us in the second half."
Gourcuff was unhappy with Domenech's decision to drop him and felt he was made a scapegoat for the team's inability to break teams down.
"I'm very, very disappointed ... It has been a collective failure over the two games. Football is hard when you can't play together," Gourcuff said. "Perhaps I have paid the price, I don't know. I've not had any explanations."
Former France great Zinedine Zidane felt Domenech made the wrong decision to drop Gourcuff.
"I don't really agree with it," Zidane told Canal Plus television. "Mexico was superior to France, especially physically."
Former France midfielder Emmanuel Petit, who won the World Cup in 1998 and Euro 2000 alongside Zidane, says France is nowhere near as good as its past reputation suggests it should be.
"We have to face facts, we're not the team that everyone says we are. We have to accept reality," Petit told the Web site of sports daily L'Equipe. "It all comes back to what I've been saying for a few days: we think we're better than we are."
Aime Jacquet, France's World Cup winning coach in '98 was equally damning.
"I thought we would see an aggressive team playing with impact, controlling everything," he said. "But (France) was incapable of playing that well and I am very disappointed. I'm very hurt."
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