It was supposed to be a win-win situation for the French. either the national team went to the football World Cup or they got rid of their quixotic, error-prone coach Raymond Domenech. Instead, they've snatched the worst of all worlds, going to South Africa as cheat, unworthy of their place through the actions of their captain, Thierry Henry, who now does not deserve one last hurrah as the great technical player he is (emphasise 'technical'). Arsenal are hardly a beacon of probity these days, but has the prevalence of deception in La Liga had a corrupting influence on the Highbury legend? Two things are certain: the Swedish referee won't be handling many high-profile games in the near future; and whatever France do at the tournament will be forever tainted by what occurred in Paris.
Elsewhere, 'Golden Guus' hiddink has los some of his lustre, with Russia's failure to make the final 32, though given that the country should not, in all honesty, have made Euro 2008, as with Croatia, what goes around, come around. Slovenia's aggregate victory is two fingers up at FIFA's cowardly, last minute decision to see the play-offs and rubs it into the Croats as another constituent part of the former Yugoslavia that made it through. Taking away the uselessness of Montenegro and F.Y.R. Macedonia, it would have just needed Bosnia-Herzegovina to have overcome Portugal to really humiliate the Croatians. By dumping Russia out, ensuring (along with Greece's victory ove Ukriane) that no part of the former USSR will have an interest in World Cupm 2010, Slovenia have pulled off the biggest play-off shock since Latvia turned over the Turks to go to Euro 2004.
Just a word for Bahrain. They would be one of the tiniest nations ever to reach the World Cup, should they do so and now in consecutive qualifying campaigns they've come so near, yet so far. In the November 2005 play-offs, Trinidad and Tobago proved their nemesis, while in 2009 it is New Zealand (who already have made a World Cup appearance in 1982) who have narrowly crushed their play-off aspirations this time. If they can keep their squad intact from retirement, here's hoping it will be third-time lucky and that Bahrain make it to Brazil 2014.