france Page 27 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Americans Temporarily Release Death Grip On Tour De France
Floyd Landis is no longer the leader of the Tour de France, after struggling in the longest stage of the Tour de France. Not only is he not leading anymore, but he's over a minute behind. The stage winner was a German named Jens Voigt, and the Overall leader is Spain's Oscar Pereiro....

No Idea Where Zidane Might Have Gotten His Temper From
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 jus...

Marco Materazzi Is Apparently A Total Moron
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....

Dr. Z Is Mad As Hell (Again)
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 ...

Your Last Zidane Roundup
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, a...

Hirshey: Madness, Glory And The Self-Correcting Aneurysm
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...

Zinedine Zidane, Slightly Perturbed
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 equivalen...

The Head Heard Round the World
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....

World Cup Final Live Blog: Italy Vs. France
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....

Just One (Real) World Cup Match To Go
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....

Another Reason To Leave The MLS
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?...

Hirshey: One More Time For Some Old Frenchmen
David Hirshey — whose beauty has been captured photographically at ESPN.com — is writing for Deadspin throughout the World Cup....

Live Blog: France Vs. Portugal
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 Cheaters At The Tour de France
With all the hullabaloo about doping at the Tour de France, we find it amazing, in this day and age, that Dick Pound (hee!) and the other blood-thinning experts are missing out on rather obvious examples of malfeasance such as this one....

The Semifinal Preview, Deadspin Reader Style
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....

Cycling To Kill Time Between Doping Scandals
The Tour de France is underway, despite the fact that four of last year's top five finishers have been banned from the competition for being dirty, dirty, dopers. Meanwhile, the other one of the five is currently cruising through Iowa. I'm not sure if it's possible to dope on corn....

France Continues Ownership Of Brazil
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 al...

Yeah, Thierry Henry Is France's Problem
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....

The Real Story Of The World Cup
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 ...

Get Ready For Tourgasm, 2006
Lance Armstrong will not be participating in the Tour de France this year; he got word that astronomers have found traces of his lost home planet, and he's gone there to investigate. So that leaves it to the mortals to fight over the remains, and if early indications are correct, the French aren't g...