Barthez and France are out (Allsport).

By Chris Roberts, PA Sport

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Manchester United defender Laurent Blanc blasted his former France team-mates as "just not good enough" after the defending champions crashed out of the World Cup without even scoring a goal.

The 1998 world champions suffered a humiliating exit following their shock 2-0 defeat to Denmark and the United star, who played a starring role four years ago but retired from international football after helping Les Bleus also win Euro 2000, insists that the players should now question themselves.

"This team has to question itself individually and collectively," said Blanc.

"Some should wonder whether they should keep playing for the national team.

"All of them had the motivation, but not the means to achieve their ambitions.

"What they showed today was just not good enough."

Former France midfielder Franck Sauzee has also expressed his sadness at his country's premature World Cup exit - but he admitted that they deserved to go out.

Les Bleus failed to score a single goal and also suffered defeat to Group A runners-up Senegal while drawing with Uruguay.

But the former Hibernian player and manager, who won the European Cup with Marseille, was not surprised by his nation's rapid decline.

Sauzee said: "That's football in the sense that in the three games France didn't really show its real power.

"It's absolutely normal not to go through to the next stage because we didn't deserve to go through because we played badly and seemed tired.

"Tactically we just weren't aware or strong against these teams, but that's football and this is a big lesson for us.

"It's a shame we have fallen because the World Cup is a wonderful competition and I love to see France do well like they have been doing.

"The shock is big, but if you are not better than the other teams you cannot go forward in a competition like this.

"If you analyse the three games we weren't good enough. We must be honest with ourselves here.

"I am sad with what has happened and the people of France will be very disappointed as they didn't expect this, but we never looked like going through."

Sauzee, who scored nine goals in 39 internationals for his country reckons the players were too dependant on inspirational midfielder Zinedine Zidane.

He admits that the country missed the Real Madrid star in their first two games, but felt that too much pressure was put on him to perform against Denmark.

"Of course Zidane's injury didn't help," admitted Sauzee. "But Zidane can't do everything just by himself and the players should have done better."

But Sauzee insists their exit was not the end of the world and he is backing them to come back stronger than ever for Euro 2004 in Portugal.

He explained: "After a tournament like that there will be a lot of explanations why the French team did badly, but I think there is a big future.

"We have a lot of good young players in France and we won the Under-19 championship so I'm not afraid for the future.

"Now we need time (to rebuild) and we will get that before we start again, but I am confident that we can come back from this stronger than ever next time."