In all probability some of the notorious and controversial snubs on this record. Regardless of some sometimes virtuosic shows for Arsenal, Robert Pires was disregarded of three consecutive France squads within the build-up to the World Cup by then-manager Raymond Domenech.
The pair had clashed the earlier autumn, with Pires overtly admitting that Domenech and “his attitudes, his phrases and his remarks aggravated him”.
The winger was subsequently disregarded of Les Bleus’ plans forward of the match, with Pires resigned to staying at residence by the point March rolled round.
“That is no shock, to be trustworthy,” Pires informed L’Equipe on the time. “What can I say? Clearly the nationwide coach doesn’t care about my performances. He has made his alternative and I’m clearly not a part of it.”
That wasn’t the tip of the story, although.
Sensational rumours swirled that Domenech based mostly his workforce choices on astrology, and he had prevented Pires on account of him being a Scorpio.
The coach would lastly deal with these claims in his guide in 2016, insisting that Pires was missed for a perceived slide in type and since his perspective would possibly show divisive.
He wrote: “I studied all of the strategies of communication, transactional evaluation and so forth. I additionally studied astrology and graphology. If I had stated ‘I’m doing graphology’ nobody would have picked up on it as a result of it has a scientific facet.
“However astrology has a mystical facet and as quickly as I discussed it folks began considering I put on a wizard’s hat on my head and gaze into crystal balls. Astrology has a worth to find out about folks’s character. Not in predicting the long run or something like that, however in figuring out folks’s profile.
“I stated to myself: ‘It’s true which you could’t handle completely different folks in the identical means so you need to strive to determine how greatest to proceed.’ So, that’s all I used it for. I by no means used it for choosing gamers for France. By no means.”