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This has been one hell of a roller-coaster week for French soccer. First, PSG got through to the quarterfinals of the Champions League in one of the craziest, most exciting matches of the year. Then Christen Press decided to embarrass the countries women’s team with this slaloming run. And now Zlatan Ibrahimovic has called the entire nation of France “s***.”
We know it’s hard to hear exactly what he’s saying, so for those of you cannot read the French subtitles, here is a transcript of his words:
"He's an a------. Play 15 years, never seen referee this s--- country. Don't even deserve PSG should be in this country. F------ too good for all of you. Should be happy they exist."
For those of you who know Zlatan, you know that he has said many, erm, original things through out his career. He as never called an entire country shit, though. This is new ground, and it seems to be the kind of ground that has landlines laced into it every square foot. The leader of France’s far right political party has already came out and told Zlatan that he should just leave the country far right leader.
But before we all go off and resoundingly condemn Zlatan, you should see what exactly got him so riled up. We're going to go out on a limb here and say that this is what pissed him off:
In a game that would eventually end 3-2, the referee missing a blatant handball by the keeper inside the box is pretty egregious. For those not well versed in the technicalities of the rule that was ignored, keepers are not allowed to handle an intentional pass back from a teammate. A penalty is not the result of a keeper breaking this rule, instead a direct free kick is awarded at the spot of the foul. Because the other team can organize a wall, such spot kicks are not as much of a sure thing as a penalty, but they are pretty close:
And considering the call was missed in the 86th minute, and that Bordeaux would eventually win 3-2, we do kind of feel for Zlatan. That was a game changing call, the referee was arguably an “a******” for missing it, and maybe, just maybe, France is a s*** country.
Nah, France is still good in our books, but so is Zlatan, too. We all get a little heated in the moment. Lord knows we have insulted entire countries before. Zlatan just happened to lose himself in public, in front of a camera.
It should be noted that he has since apologized.
