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Even rugby stars can have helicopter parents, as French number 8 Imanol Harinordoquy learned when shit went down between his Biarritz club and rival Bayonne in France's top division. More »
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Chris Benz and Dave Shireley will be filing dispatches from the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, in the odd moments that they are sober. For a rugby glossary and position guide, click here. More »
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Okay, it actually means that the farmers of 44 are "proud to feed you [and also they made a giant bike out of hay bales and tractors]." This display went up during a Tour de France stage earlier in the week, so we're a bit late — but we wanted to share it with you because it is a wonderful representation of the things people will do when they have free health care and five weeks of vacation each year. Fin. More »
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Our French tipster Antoine sent this in with the subject line "ro basketball team training with robots," perhaps because he's aware of our constant fear of the Robot Uprising. But the Futuroscope that helped Poitiers Basket 86 develop their spatial recognition or some such nonsense doesn't inspire the same kind of fear. Certainly the giant claw could pop our skulls like grapes, or hurl us directly into the sun. But there's no uncanny valley; it can't look at us before it ends us. More »
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VCU product Jamal Shuler steps to the free throw line with 6 seconds left, his French team up one. What happens next, c'est incroyable. More »
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After being handed an 18-match ban, effectively ending his international career: "They are real clowns these people. I'm dying with laughter." Meanwhile, Ribery got a 3-match suspension, and is dying with whatever his underage hooker gave him. [AFP] More »
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New France coach Laurent Blanc will drop all 23 World Cup players from the team (if only for one game), as punishment for their mini-strike. It should be interesting, as France's U21 side probably could have beaten that World Cup squad. [AP] More »
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Four years ago, in the World Cup final, France's Zinedine Zidane defended the honor of his whore sister and ended his career in an unimaginably bizarre fashion. Afterward, David Hirshey bid a sad adieu. More »
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Whether in a Parisian bar or at the local office of the Association of the Friends of the Paris Commune, Deadspin foreign correspondent John Harpham found the French delighting ever so Frenchily in their national team's disgrace. More »
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South Africa is the first host nation that failed to make it out of the World Cup's group stage—but even they managed to humiliate the French and send them home amid one last bit of poor sportsmanship. Delicious. More »
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Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter's anchors are too perky for this early in this morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and internets to bring you everything you need to know to start your day. More »
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Does France know there's a World Cup going on? Does Mexico have the firepower? Winner has the inside track to joining Uruguay* in the knockout stages. More »
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France captain Patrice Evra says vuvuzelas were partly responsible for their goalless draw: "We can't sleep at night because of the vuvuzelas. People start playing them from 6 a.m. We can't hear one another out on the pitch because of them." [AFP] More »
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Uruguay and France meet on the pitch to finally settle which is the best way to dispose of dissidents in times of political upheaval: desaparecidos or le guillotine. Unrelated two cents: Desaparecidos was a badass band. More »
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Lassana Diarra will miss the World Cup with what's euphemistically being called "a stomach ailment" or "intestinal pains." It must have been contagious when the entire team nearly shit the bed against Ireland. [AP] More »
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In libertine France, it takes a lot to spark a sex scandal. Think an underage call girl will turn do the trick? Franck Ribery could face charges after seeing the girl, though he says he didn't know her age. [AFP] More »
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In sports, everyone is a winner—some people just win better than others. Like France, who finally regained their rightful place as Europe's most reviled country. We really missed dumping on those cheese eaters. More »
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Ireland's World Cup dreams die, and France's live on, thanks to a goal that saw two strikers clearly offside, and a pair of blatant Thierry Henry handball assists to boot. The Irish, as you might expect, aren't taking this well. More »
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Here's a shocker from the cycling world: Team Astana—which featured the first- and third-place finishers at the Tour de France—is now under a doping investigation! I'm starting to think cycling might have a problem with drugs. [AFP/AP] More »
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Look, when you play for a soccer team from a town named Nancy, headlines like this are inevitable. (What editor could resist?) Especially when you run away from swine flu like a team of little girls. [ESPN] More »
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Lance Armstrong has never failed a drug test and that makes French people insane, but like anyone with a good enough lawyer, they may have found a loophole to punish him anyway. More »
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The Premiership is taking the day off in favor of some hot qualifying action for Euro 2008. But don't worry, many of your favorite British football stars still found a way to embarrass themselves. More »
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In a time of heated rhetoric, political grandstanding and continued confusion on the facts, we looked forward to an interview with Zinedine Zidane's ailing mother. Perhaps the woman would provide us with some much-need perspective, give everyone a chance to just cool down and realize that it's just a game, that mistakes happen, that she loves her son and that's all that really matters. More »
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As far as defenses against accusations of making racist remarks go, we have to say, Italian player Marco Materazzi has a particularly good one after being notoriously head-butted by Zinedine Zidane. More »
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We'll get into an update of all the fun Zinedine Zidane theories a little later today, but we wanted to pause to take a look at Paul Zimmerman's column for SI.com yesterday. We have no shame about this: We love Paul Zimmerman. We know he's old, we know he's cranky, we know he probably spends most of his evenings drinking wine at his kitchen table while grumbling about the kids on the "Information Superhighway" and how the Whole Goddamned World Is Going To Hell. We know all this, and we don't care. He's a wonderfully natural writer, he knows more about football than just about anyone else we read and, mostly, he seems half-drunk most of the time. How do you not love him? More »
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In case you haven't exhausted your Zinedine Zidane animated GIF quotient for the day, here's a compendium of some of our favorite ones; the Butterfinger one is still the best. And if you like your moving online stuff to be interactive, here's a game that allows you to collect Zidane red cards. Oh, and people are even coming up with conspiracy theories. More »
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Madness. Can there be any other word for both this World Cup and the way it ended? It would be like Tiger Woods, moments from donning another green jacket at the Masters, bringing his putter down on top of Vijay Singh's skull. Or Michael Jordan stepping up to the free throw line in the final ticks of an NBA championship game and breaking Kobe Bryant's nose with a basketball. More »
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So, it has been about 16 hours, and we still haven't quite gotten over the amazement of Zinedine Zidane's brutal headbutt to end his soccer career. It was truly one of the most astounding sports moments we can remember; like many Americans, we struggled to come up with an American sports equivalent, save for maybe Michael Jordan decking Byron Russell with two minutes left in Game 6. And even that wouldn't quite be the same. More »
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Congratulations to Italy, World Cup Champions. However, I have to admit, that's probably one of the greatest retirements I've ever seen. Better than John Kruk leaving the game after he got his average back up to .300 for his career. More »
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Well, it took long enough, but it's finally time for the World Cup Final. It's your favorite divers from Italy against the surrender monkeys from France. It's non-stop fun; it's the World Cup. More »
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All right, well, this is it: Just one more World Cup game — one that counts, anyway — and this whole thing is over. On Sunday, it's France vs. Italy for the World Cup title and all the international respect for its citizens and its style of play that comes with it. More »
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The joke about employees skipping out of work to watch the World Cup has become so prevalent that even ESPN is making the joke (and setting it, cleverly, to a U2 song). But what about when one of your employees is, well, a soccer player? More »
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David Hirshey — whose beauty has been captured photographically at ESPN.com — is writing for Deadspin throughout the World Cup. More »
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We're down to the final three teams in the World Cup — unless you count the third-place game, and who counts the third place game? — and we're knocking out one of them right now. The first team in the World Cup Finals is Italy; who will be the second, as they say? More »
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Hey, many many thanks to all those who sent in their thoughts on the World Cup semifinals, to which Spain is not invited. Here are some of the finer selections. More »
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Brazil has capped a tournament full of uninspiring play with more of the same, but this time, they weren't able to get away with it. A peaking-at-the-right-time French squad got a goal from Thierry Henry, slotting home a free kick from the man of the match, Zinedine Zidane. Zidane was brilliant all day long. More »
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If you're planning on watching the Brazil/France match later on today, you may notice that France doesn't suit up a lot of white guys. Of the 23-man roster, 16 of them are something other than white. More »
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After all the talk of diving in soccer yesterday, we couldn't possibly have been happier to receive this comprehensive study from "Information Builders." The point of the study is to look at the World Cup so far — up to but not including this morning's Germany-Argentina game — and tally which teams are flopping the most, which teams aren't singing their national anthem, which teams are throwing the most tantrums, so on. It's quite instructive. Some highlight findings: More »
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Admit it: After weeks of watching the Beckhams , Ballacks , Figos and Tonis and the rest of the preening World Cup showponies parade their smoldering good looks and luxuriant manes around the field after a match, didn't it feel good yesterday to see a couple of ancient chrome domes like Zidane and Barthez walk off, arm in arm, grinning and laughing just like it was 1998 all over again? Like they were on top of the soccer world ... and still nutmegging Linda Evangelista. More »
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A little way to keep yourself entertained during this World Cup if you happen to be the sort who has trouble retaining interest? Pretend the countries are their corresponding characters in "Mike Tyson's Punch Out." Therefore, this one is Don Flamenco vs. Glass Joe. There. Don't you feel better? You can now RELATE! More »
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