2010, a dark year for French football. It remains engraved as one of the darkest pages in the history of the Blues, marked by the cataclysm of the World Cup in South Africa (elimination in the group stage) and the famous Knysna scandal, where the players refused to get off the bus to train in order to protest against the ouster of Nicolas Anelka.
During this World Cup which sadly remained in legend, Yoann Gourcuff also experienced very complicated moments. Prematurely presented by the media as the successor to Zinedine Zidane, the Breton playmaker came up against a particularly hostile environment. He suffered from a deep rift with certain executives of the Blues, including the captain at the time Patrice Evra. Which was recently confirmed by Pierre Ménès.
“Yoann Gourcuff is the story of a guy who was psychologically destroyed by unhealthy players from the France team. Which the Netflix documentary didn’t show at all. It’s so much easier to just punch Domenech in the face and absolve the players. But hey, I’m not fooled, because I know what happened at that time.”said the former Canal+ star consultant on his YouTube channel.
“The guys who wanted his skin were Anelka, Abidal, Evra and Malouda”
“Gourcuff mentally weak? When you know what he experienced in South Africa (during the 2010 World Cup, editor’s note), there are others who would have become very weak too… Because really, what he experienced there, it’s really not good. We put a lot of pressure on Ribéry, and it’s not fair, because there was never a fight between the two. The guys who wanted his skin were Anelka, Abidal, Evra and Malouda”denounced the 63-year-old journalist.
“Malouda went to see Domenech before the first match against Uruguay, and told him that he wanted to defend for Zidane, but that he does not want to defend for Gourcuff, continued Pierre Ménès. Cand to which Domenech made the only decision that was necessary when a player dares to say something like that: you don’t play. And then I remember very well, I was at CFC, and Gourcuff went to see Domenech after the match, telling him that he couldn’t play because the other players were boycotting him. Domenech explains that he is talking bullshit. He asks the video editing guy for a video which clearly shows that Gourcuff is not boycotted. Two hours later the video editor told him he couldn’t make a video because they never give him the ball. »
And to conclude: “There you go, the guys called him ‘the new star’, he was too handsome, too well-mannered… I wouldn’t go so far as to say too white, but why not. And there you have it. It was smashed by thugs, who years later are still doing very well. When I see Evra who dares to come and give lessons to the whole world…”
