The 'me' generation is costing French dear

What Deschamps and Blanc said was followed to the letter. They were not of the "I" generation.

Last week, ahead of the game against Switzerland, Fabien Barthez announced he would quit football at the end of the season.

"I just don't like football any longer. It is rotten," said Barthez.

By all accounts, if such negative thoughts had been issued publicly ahead of such a vital game in the Deschamps-Blanc era, Barthez would have had a visit in his room at the Clairefontaine training centre and would have suffered a verbal coating. After the World Cup success, the French players were treated like The Beatles - feted and adored wherever they went. But all the time, Deschamps kept a grip.

However, with his retirement and that of Blanc came the end of a golden generation - Lilian Thuram, Zinedine Zidane, Marcel Desailly and Emmanuel Petit all left the international stage soon afterwards. And they were replaced by players without their presence or their class.

Thierry Henry struggles to reproduce for France what he shows to such devastating effect with Arsenal. David Trezeguet is lethal for Juventus, less than impressive for his country.

Patrick Vieira is the captain for club and country but he does not have around him the quality that Deschamps had.

Successive national managers have failed to make the same impact as Aime Jacquet, the man whose personality was dominant enough to extract the best from such a powerful collection of personalities.

Roger Lemerre, his successor, struggled. True, he won Euro 2000 but the team almost ran itself. It was like a well-oiled machine.

But when the major influences left, France began to stumble. The World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea were a disaster and Lemerre left.

Jacques Santini took over and, despite an impressive qualification campaign for the European championships in Portugal last summer, it all went wrong again in the finals.

Santini wanted a new contract, the French Federation said he had to wait until after the championships and morale was affected. A quarterfinal exit followed.

Enter Raymond Domenech. While many pushed the case for Blanc to take over, Domenech was appointed. It has not gone well.

He has fallen out with Robert Pires, has still to devise a plan to bring the best from Henry and Trezeguet and attempted to bring in a regime of discipline - like a ban on mobile phones at meal times and in the treatment room. It has backfired.

Domenech has since been given the most unwelcome source of support - the dreaded vote of confidence from the new FFF President Jean-Pierre Escalettes.

"He will be in charge until the end of the qualification programme," said M Escalettes. Maybe, not what Domenech wanted to hear as he prepares for the game in Israel where victory is essential and defeat unthinkable.

If France are beaten tonight, there is a real chance that their hopes of playing in Germany will go with it. Domenech may just take a detour on the way home to visit the Wailing Wall.