The Absurd Frenchman

Editor’s Note: This is excerpted from Balls of Fire by David Scharfenberg and Lance Gould, June 1 issue of The Boston Phoenix. The graphic comes from an article by Paul Westman.

French skipper Raymond Domenech is, perhaps, the perfect stand-in for his country: he is the most ridiculed manager in international soccer — and easily the most entertaining.

Domenech famously decided to keep winger Robert Pires off the team because the player was a Scorpio. And the coach (Aquarius, with Virgo rising) has little patience for Leos, either.

“When I have got a Leo in defense, I’ve always got my gun ready,” he once said. “I know he’s going to want to show off at one moment or another and cost us.” The coach’s caprice has not gone over well with astrologically challenged players. But Domenech has managed to piss off even those with more favorable charts.

Once accused of treating star midfielder Claude Makelele, who was born in Africa, like a “slave” by “forcing” him to play for Les Bleus, Domenech replied: “He’s the slave and I’m the slave driver. I crack the whip and he comes running.”

When his French team defeated Portugal in a 2006 World Cup semi-final match, he reportedly shouted at the Iberian squad, “I fucked you! I fucked you!”

And after a miserable showing at the Euro 2008 tournament, the manager used a post-match press conference to ask Estelle Denis, the mother of his two children, to marry him. She was none too pleased.

There was likely more tension on the home front this past fall when former porn star turned art-rocker Catherine Ringer released the hit single “Je Kiffe Raymond” (“I Fancy Raymond”). Among the lyrics: “If he attacked my penalty areas, I would be without defenders.”

Sadly, the coach seems to be without many defenders of his own these days. The French Football Federation has named a successor who will take over after the World Cup.

But at least Domenech seems to understand the feelings many have for him — and his countrymen: “I sometimes think that, if I had to put up with me,” he once said, “I would probably hate me, too.”