Life moves on, the traffic doesn't on Highway to Hell

THE TAXI driver points, with no little excitement, towards Stade de France on the left. “Ah, oui,” you say, purring at your own fluency, “Mercredi, leg deuxieme, Cup du Monde? Mais, vous were tres poxed avec luck, non? Anelka, goal, de-flex-ee-on?”

“Non,” he grunts, pointing again, “Yannick!”

Ah, Yannick Noah, the dreadlocked French tennis player, now closing in on his 50th birthday. What about him? He points again. Divil an indication that the stadium will be hosting a football match tomorrow night, but there’s a monster sign advertising the fact that Yannick will be playing there in September 2010, a week after U2.

“A very big tennis court, no?”

“No, no – no tennis, Yannick sing.”

He does too, but those of us not intimately familiar with Yannick’s post-tennis career were unaware that this man has the vocal chords to fill Stade de France. It’d be like, say, Pádraig Harrington and the Five Irons filling Croke Park with their blend of reggae and soul in 20 years’ time.

Ticket prices start at €130, if you’re interested.

“A beautiful rendezvous in a beautiful place for, I hope, a beautiful event,” says the 1983 French Open winner, whose favourite memories from the stadium are France’s 1998 World Cup triumph and an AC/DC concert.

The taxi driver will be there, his ticket partly funded by this particular fare, sky-rocketing thanks to the Parisien Sunday traffic, everywhere a Highway to Hell, so to speak.

He won’t be in Stade de France tomorrow, though. He slaps his steering wheel at the mere mention of the team, points at his right temple and circles his finger when Raymond Domenech’s name pops up.

But his expertise falls a little into doubt when he compliments the Irish team by beating his chest, and wishing them well in the World Cup, for which, he understands, they have already qualified.

“Eh, non,” you say.

“Non?!”

“Non.”

“Non?”

“Non.”

That’s that cleared up, then.

So, for some desperately-needed expertise we flick through the pages of l'Equipe. Ah, the player ratings for Saturday's game. Wait – Shay Given gets four out of ten? Liam Lawrence gets eight, that's good, but Shay Given gets four? "And you must remember," says the chuckling French-based English reporter later in the day, "that is an average of L'Equipe reporters' ratings, so . . ."

Someone might have given him a three? “Yes.” Or a two? “Possibly.”

There’s no point asking the taxi driver for his opinion on this affront, he probably thinks Given is U2’s drummer. So, you bid adieu, tell him a Securicor van will be along soon with his fare, and tell him to say hello to Yannick.

The hotel’s lift is out of order so after lugging a suitcase of Barry’s Tea and Kerrygold up to the fourth floor it’s time to set off for Clairefontaine. If the taxi driver had clinched the fare he could have hired Yannick for his next birthday party.

It’s hardly Domenech’s or the French squad’s fault that their base – Le Centre Technique National Fernand Sastre – is 35 miles from Paris; it is, after all, the headquarters of the French football association and home to its academy. But the journey might partly account for the mood of the Paris-based reporters whenever they arrive to attend press conferences, having first battled gridlock, then zig-zagged their way through the narrow, winding, unlit roads on the approach to the secluded rural complex. It would be the equivalent of Giovanni Trapattoni setting up camp in a forest near, say, Ardee.

Their mood has been only marginally lightened by Saturday’s win, although, ever on the hunt for fresh ammunition to fire at Domenech, their ears pricked open on hearing Nicolas Anelka claim there were “no instructions” from the bench when he and Henry “started out as wingers and saw nothing of the ball” on Saturday. The pair decided for themselves, he said, that they had to drop deeper if they were to get more involved. The comment helped maintain the consistent theme of the coverage: if France make it to the World Cup it will be in spite of Domenech, certainly not because of him. Merci Nicolas.

Back to Paris, the return trip proving to be a significantly more trying ordeal. Another French truckers’ strike? “No, just half the city’s population returning at the very same time from their weekend break.”

Le lift fixed, oui?

“Non.”

Non?!

“Non. Bon soir.”

Monday and the city still doesn’t seem to be tingling with excitement ahead of the second leg, life moves on, the traffic doesn’t. Anelka is on the front pages, many a reference to that absence of instructions from the manager. You get the feeling they’d very much like their team to make it to South Africa, but would be happy enough to see Domenech take the Highway to Hell. He and the hotel have something in common: they could both do with a lift.