Jérôme Rothen didn’t like it and made it known. Totally exasperated by the comments of the Grégoire Margotton-Bixente Lizarazu duo during the French team’s last match, Monday evening against Belgium (4-1), the host of “Rothen s’igne” admitted to having cut the sound on his television.
Faithful to his outspokenness, the former French international accused TF1 consultants of lacking journalistic objectivity and of losing their minds in the face of Zinedine Zidane’s debut at the head of the France team.
“What is clear is that we are all very happy to see a figure, an icon like him at the head of the France team. (…) It’s normal that all eyes are on Zinedine Zidane, he is above all the players. I can understand the euphoria, the excitement, it’s logical, and fortunately there’s still that. But it will fade after a while. We are taking you very high in football…”Rothen said first.
Rothen: “They are completely crazy”
“But once you’ve said that, observers, consultants, journalists, it’s a real job, it’s not just making shows. So we have to put all the excitement aside, and stay focused on what’s happening on the ground.”added the ex-Parisian, before directly targeting Grégoire Margotton and Bixente Lizarazu.
“When I say stop, it’s because when you listen to the match, and the journalist and the consultant, who is also Zinedine Zidane’s friend, “Liza” – who I like a lot, there’s no problem – they spend hours and hours telling Zizou this, that, and the control… What happens on the pitch, we don’t care, he lashed out. Zizou could do the control of Doué too, he did it even better… The decisive pass, yeah, that, Zizou showed them… They are completely crazy in fact. So I turned off the sound. That’s Zizou mania. I blame all the pseudo football specialists. »
