The match was only 25 minutes old and the puffy white clouds hanging over the Free State Stadium had yet to take on sunset's pink-orange hue when the Colombian referee, Oscar Ruiz, reached for his pocket.
The card he pulled out was bright red. He was ordering Yoann Gourcuff off the field, punishing the French midfielder for a nasty elbow-first foul that felled Macbeth Sibaya of South Africa like a woodman's ax.
On the edge of the pitch, French coach Raymond Domenech buried his head in his hands. With Gourcuff's expulsion, France's wafer-thin hopes of perhaps rescuing its calamitous World Cup by beating South Africa evaporated. France's humiliation was now total and complete.
The 1998 champions and losing finalists in 2006 are going home early from this first World Cup in Africa - winless and the laughing stock of the soccer world. As one of Europe's soccer powers, a nation that churns out top-quality players who compete for Europe's big clubs and biggest leagues, France had reason to believe before this competition that it would at least get beyond the first round.
Instead, its multimillionaire players embarrassed themselves and their nation by rebelling against their coach and the French Football Federation, even taking the extraordinary step of going on strike. The soap opera disputes in the luxurious French camp grew to such dramatic proportions that President Nicolas Sarkozy got involved to try to limit damage to France's reputation, not just in soccer but in the wider world, too. His sports minister, sent to hammer some sense into the rebels, reduced players to tears on the eve of their final game against South Africa, telling them: ``You have tarnished the image of France.''
Playing less than 24 hours after that scolding at their hotel in Bloemfontein, a city in the arid plains of central South Africa, France's players roused themselves in spurts on Tuesday afternoon, but not enough to secure a win that might have started to make amends for their off-field behavior and, with luck, perhaps even have prevented France from going out of the tournament.
Reduced to 10 men after Gourcuff was sent off with 65 minutes to play, the French lost 2-1. It was France's second defeat in three matches at this World Cup. It also had a stalemate 0-0 tie with Uruguay. For South Africa, the win was scant consolation: Having lost one and drawn the other of its previous two games, it became the first World Cup host in 80 years of the competition to be eliminated from the first round.
Uruguay and Mexico finished ahead of South Africa and France in Group A and advanced Tuesday to knockout games that will be played among the last 16 teams.
For France, the defining image of the last World Cup was of Zinedine Zidane walking off the field in the final against Italy after being sent off for head-butting Italian defender Marco Materazzi. The defining image this time was even more ignominious: France's players sulking on their bus, curtains drawn, on Sunday, refusing to join a public training session in front of 200 local fans, in a show of support for their teammate Nicolas Anelka.
Anelka, a talented but at times disruptive scorer and creator of goals who has played for eight different clubs in his nomadic professional career, cursed out Domenech at halftime in France's 2-0 loss to Mexico last Thursday and was sent back to France for it. His brother says Anelka is now vacationing with his family in Spain. Convinced that Anelka was unfairly treated, France's other players responded with their wildcat strike - an act described as ``an aberration, an imbecility, a stupidity without name'' by Domenech on the feverish and emotional eve of Tuesday's must-win game for both France and the South Africans.
In the end, the squabbling in France's squad almost completely overshadowed the match and rendered the result almost anecdotal. Some players, among them Hugo Lloris, the French goalkeeper who made both shaky errors and stunning saves on Tuesday, walked out of the stadium grave-faced and silent after the defeat and climbed back on their bus with the words, ``Together for a new dream in blue'' written in its side.
Others seized the chance to give their side of the story and even say sorry, among them Patrice Evra, a defender who plays his club football for Manchester United. He was benched by Domenech and stripped of the captaincy for Tuesday's game. His subsequent comments to reporters made clear that the breakdown in relations between France's coach and some of his players is total.
``This apology should have been made yesterday, but my coach stopped me doing it as a captain, and that hurts even more,'' Evra said. ``The whole of France needs to have an explanation for this disaster. It's not the time to give them, but I will personally give them ... what I went through, just the truth, as quickly as possible.''
Speaking for the other side, French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes said the ``shame that football brought to France'' was ``far worse than poor results.''
``What upsets me the most is the psychodrama,'' he said. ``For me, 50 years of values crumbled.''
The match was Domenech's last in six years as coach. His replacement by Laurent Blanc, a veteran of France's 1998 cup-winning side, was announced before this competition, rendering Domenech a lame duck and seemingly weakening his authority over players. Domenech oversaw 80 matches as coach - winning just over half of them. But his tenure brought no trophies. After losing the 2006 World Cup final in a penalty shoot-out, his team was quickly ejected from the European Championships two years later and, now, from this World Cup. He will not be missed by fans, who have regularly booed him at games.
One of his last acts as coach was refusing the traditional handshake with his opponent, South Africa trainer Carlos Alberto Parreira. At a post-match press conference, Domenech refused to explain his act. But it typified the poisonous atmosphere in the French camp.
``The first word that comes to my lips is sadness,'' the coach said of France's failed campaign. ``I am in pain, in distress.''
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AP Sports Writers Ryan Lucas, Jerome Pugmire and Gerald Imray in Bloemfontein and Associated Press Writer Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.
