30th: FRANCE

If England were/are bad then you can double, maybe treble that for the French. An utter shambles. They shouldn't have even been in the tournament in the first place, of course. It wasn't meant to be like this, and without the unlawful intervention of an arm we would have been spared the spectacle of seeing a once great team literally fall apart over the space of 11 days.

Imagine how much more colour, interest and excitement having the Republic of Ireland and their fans at the tournament would have added. Instead, we had the perennially under-supported French and their prissy, in-fighting, sulky collection of losers. France added absolutely nothing to the tournament. You can't even call them a team, without doing that word a serious injustice.

They were boring to watch, the nil nil versus Uruguay being the nadir. They only made the headlines by crying and squabbling on the training ground, and sending home a striker like a naughty schoolboy. And there were players who were just a waste of space, most of their surnames beginning with the letter 'g'. I can't remember their actual names, Govou may have been one, but they were all utterly and unrelentingly poor.

Here's hoping they get drawn in the same qualifying group as the Republic of Ireland for the next World Cup, and that the Irish whup their sorry asses.