Perhaps the most obvious example I can give of what really upsets me with the French football team is the effect that being a part of it has had on one of the players. Thierry Henry's career is a fascinating collection of peaks and troughs. He was very young when he came to prominence at Monaco and dazzled people with his pace and enthusiasm. Sure enough, the big money transfer to Serie A was soon on the table and he went off to Juventus expected to set the league on fire.

He had a miserable time. Didn't seem to be able to hit a cow's *rse with a banjo and soon didn't have the confidence to go anywhere near the goal and was restricted to playing as a winger. He pretty soon found himself so far out of favour he couldn't even get on the bench and he might have been finished.

Enter Arsene Wenger with the shock move to sign him and cue the anticipation amongst the press as they looked to see him fail big time. Sure enough, his first outings were suspect; there were the now trademark wild strikes high and wide of goal and the loss of nerve in the final third. However, he had total protection from Wenger who constantly stuck up for him and stood by him. He kept playing him out wide with a brief of cutting inside on the break and he managed 2 goals from his first 16 gamesnot bad, but expensive at 10.5 mil. Come the end of November, however, and the patience and perseverance began paying off as he banged in 6 goals in 9 games before Christmas.

The amazing thing was that even as a non-Arsenal fan you could appreciate the enormous smiles and grateful acknowledgement he kept giving to teammates and fans, and the respect he was showing Wenger. Every interview was about how thankful he was at this new start and everyone's patience with him. He then went on to bang in 16 goals for Arsenal in 23 games from the New Year onwards. A sign of progress was that he was no longer played out wide but had Parlour and Overmars on the wings behind him, and Suker and Kanu spent weeks on the bench. Right to the end of the season he remained modest and obviously delighted in the upturn of his fortunes.

We come to Euro2000, however, and he scores a lovely goal against Denmark in his opening group game. Still delighted, still smiling, still walking in dreamland. Within a week, though, he was a different person: Anelka had been edged out to some extent, and Henry's place was secured. We suddenly saw a petulant Henry, kicking at ankles, tugging shirts, remonstrating with officials. As each game went on the facial expressions changed from alertness to preening and posing. The big Gallic shrugs started appearing when passes weren't where he wanted them. Those little passes in the final third disappeared as greed took hold and he started making ridiculously ambitious shots however much better a teammate's position was.

I can only put it down to rubbing shoulders with the rest of those arrogant sons of bitches. Delight in scoring replaced by smugness. Teamwork replaced by selfishness. Determination and concentration on the job replaced by strutting and posing. Wenger has sent them a player in superb form and they're sending back an arrogant peacock: what am I bid that Henry becomes the next 'Anelka' and dumps all over Wenger?

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000

Answers

I think you can also expect a flurry of the following comments:

"The English have no appreciation of skill"

"The English game is too fast and physical for me to express myself"

"It gets dark early in winter here"

"The English are ignorant and only speak English to me"

"I'm off"

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000

Nice one Bobster, it can only be in our favour, except they'll just bring on Kanu.....:-)

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000