Loss to Italy signals end to an era for France
SOCCER DAILY
Claude Makelele and Lilian Thuram announce their retirements, and Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry could follow.
An era ended on Tuesday night when the final whistle sounded at the Letzigrund stadium in Zurich, Switzerland.
Les Bleus, as we know them, are no more.
As Claude Makelele walked off the field after France's 2-0 loss to Italy at Euro 2008, he was making the trek for the last time. At 35, the time had come to call it quits.
Long regarded as one of the world's great defensive midfielders, Makelele announced that he had played his 71st and last match for France.
"I always said this would be my final competition," the Chelsea player said. "I have no regrets at finishing now. I have sweated for this shirt and it has brought me 100% happiness, so there are no regrets."
No regrets, either, for defender Lilian Thuram, 36, who said that he, too, had played his final game for the national team after being left on the bench Tuesday.
Team captain Patrick Vieira, who turns 32 on Monday, is expected to announce his international retirement after having not played one minute during Euro 2008 because of injury, and Thierry Henry, France's all-time leading goal scorer, said he was weighing his options. At 30, he might go on.
All four were members of a brilliant French generation that swept all before it, inspired by the likes of the already-retired Zinedine Zidane, Fabien Barthez and the rest of Les Bleus from a decade ago.
Thuram, as a starter, and Vieira and Henry were part of France's 1998 World Cup-winning team that celebrated the night away after defeating Brazil in the final in Paris.
The trio was also there when France won Euro 2000, jointly staged by Belgium and the Netherlands, defeating Italy in the final in Rotterdam to become the only reigning world champion ever to win the European Championship.
By 2006, Makelele had long been a fixture on the national team and the four were all on the field in Berlin when Italy gained its revenge by prevailing on penalty kicks in the World Cup final.
Now, inevitably, their era has come to a close.
"A new generation can take the reins and come together," Makelele said.
Thuram goes out having played a record 142 games for France. "This elimination is very difficult to take," he said.
But it was not unexpected. Not once in its three matches did France look anything like the team it once had been. It was tentative, slow, unimaginative, nervous, out of sync and out of sorts.
