So we’re out of the group stages now, and it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the favourites, that's for sure. There have been some near misses (Spain, I’m looking at you) and some absolute skin-of-the-teeth qualifications by teams that you would expect to have simply cruised through their groups (England). But we have lost some favourites, and while no other awards have been finalized as the tournament is just getting into the business end of proceedings, I think I can safely give probably the least coveted prize in world football: The Worst Manager of the Tournament Award.
So, without further ado, here are you finalists!
In third place:
Cameroon’s Paul Le Guen!
Okay, so the fact they were the first team eliminated was more to do with the fixturing of the tournament rather than any particular fault of their own. That’s actually a lie, they were awful, and deserved to be eliminated.
The Cameroon national team isn’t exactly the greatest on earth, but it is solid. Very solid. To solid to be losing games so cheaply to Denmark and Japan, especially at a world cup, and especially with a man like Samuel Eto’o leading your strikeforce.
I’ll confess something here; the inclusion of Paul Le Guen on this list has less to do with what he achieved, or didn’t achieve as it turned out at the 2010 World Cup and more to do with the fact that apparently he is going to take over the reins of the Socceroos after Verbeek leaves. How is this an improvement? The only track-record this man possesses is managing to make a halfway reasonable looking national side look distinctly 3rd or even 4th rate. Why can’t we get Carlos Alberto Perreira if we have to have a manager who didn’t take his team anywhere? At least he made a very bad team in South Africa look almost reasonable instead of the opposite.
In second place:
Italy’s Marcello Lippi
The “Tuscan Tactician” as he is nicknamed, has one of the most impressive honour-roles in world football; five Serie A titles, four Italian Supercups, one Champions League, one UEFA Supercup and one Intercontinental Cup, not to mention coaching Italy to the 2006 World Cup.
So when Italy bombed out in the group stage of the 2010 World Cup some heads were going to roll. And Lippi’s head was at the top of that list.
Italy were beyond pathetic, they were in a group containing Paraguay, Slovakia and New Zealand, and they failed to register a single victory, even against New Zealand, who one could even claim dominated the match.
I guess it’s karma for the fact they cheated their way to victory four years ago in Germany.
In first place
France’s Raymond Domenech
This bloke is bonkers. Honestly, if he wasn’t coaching France’s national team, he would probably be locked up in a padded room.
He is an avid astrologist, which means he is one of the handful of people who legitimately cares about what that bum in the back of the paper/women’s magazine says will happen to you because of the month you were born in. He has admitted to distrusting Scorpio’s, and so excludes players from the team based on this assumption. Sounds reasonable…
He also managed to get into a fight with his entire squad, alienate his staff, and lead the team to boycott training during the World Cup. There has to be something that's actually wrong with him.
Finally, the football. France didn’t win a game, nor did they ever look like winning a game. They were insipid, they were boring, and they managed to lose to South Africa, which, for a team that was in the final of the World Cup four years ago, is atrocious. Oh yeah, because they were in a group with South Africa, it meant they had pretty much the easiest run they could have hoped for, given that they didn’t deserve to be there in the first place. And they still managed to balls it up.
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