Tigana poised to answer his country's call

You wondered at first whether the French had fully understood what had just happened to them in South Korea. Despite having made an embarrassingly swift exit from the tournament, many of the world and European champions reacted as if they had merely lost a couple of meaningless friendlies.

The fact that disappointing and tired players such as Marcel Desailly announced their intention to stay on was bewildering enough, but the manager's decision not to offer his resignation at a specially convened meeting with the French football authorities on Friday beggared belief.

Never had a French coach enjoyed such freedom from his employers and the media in the lead-up to a major tournament. Nor had any of Roger Lemerre's predecessors had such a rich pool of players to choose from. And yet this was France's worst World Cup showing, the poorest-ever set of results from defending champions. Lemerre's fate will now be decided on 5 July, more than three weeks after the team's return.

The delay smacks of arrogance and incompetence. Arrogance because it suggests Les Bleus did nothing wrong (the president of the French Football Federation has even said this was "just a blip"), and incompetence because time will soon run out for the powers to find someone before the start of next season.

When Lemerre does eventually step down, the FFF will be faced with their most difficult decision in a generation. Having promoted from within for the last 14 years, the time has come seriously to consider bringing in an outsider to repair the damage. There are enough world-class players under the age of 30 left in the squad to form the basis of a new team, but a strong coach is now needed to retire the older guard and then reshape the remaining stars.

Lemerre's two assistants, Rene Girard and Guy Stephan, are, like the 60-year-old, good coaches who lack authority. The Under-21 manager, Raymond Domenech, has been with the federation for six years and is probably too close to the players already. Possible outside contenders include Jean Tigana, who was approached in 1998 but felt he should honour his contract with Monaco. Franco Baresi's arrival at Fulham means that he may not be quite so reluctant to jump ship this time. The man the French really want is Arsène Wenger, but he has made it clear he will not leave Arsenal in the wake of completing the Double.

Whoever does come in will have to be far more ruthless. Lemerre's laissez-faire attitude is in sharp contrast to his former boss, Aimé Jacquet, whose winning maxim was that "the most successful team is the one that pays most attention to detail". Throughout the last two years of Lemerre's reign, though, too many ill-judged and often lazy decisions were taken. Rather than prepare diligently for the World Cup, France embarked on something resembling a road show.

One of Lemerre's favourite excuses has been to blame his players' exhaustion on the lengthy English season, but never has he admitted that it was unwise to take France on trips to Korea, Australia and Chile in the last 12 months. He seems to forget that Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and England qualified for the second stage despite most of their squads playing in the Premiership.

The lack of any competitive fixtures between Euro 2000 and this World Cup was nobody's fault, but the lack of competition within the squad lies firmly at Lemerre's door. Frank Leboeuf may have had an injury-ravaged season playing for an underachieving club in an average league, but he knew months before the tournament started that he would be first-choice centre-back alongside Desailly. Lemerre never had the courage to break up or even adjust Jacquet's 1998 winning team. True, he made the team more attack-minded, but that owed much to the maturing of the existing strikers, such as Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet. His one major addition was Arsenal's Sylvain Wiltord, who ran his heart out but never looked world-class.

Lemerre's biggest mistake was to refuse to pull the alarm cord after France's defeat by Senegal. Two days later, the same old players were deployed in the same old 4-2-3-1 formation. By the time the must-win Denmark game arrived, France had left themselves too much to do. "When the second match was finished, we were as good as out," Guy Roux, the Auxerre manager, says. "Somehow, the players never realised that."

France's plight effectively stemmed from their inability to heed the warning signs that had been increasing by the month. "My team is protected by the culture of victory," Lemerre announced boldly on the eve of the tournament. Not any more.