A wound that never really healed. Sixteen years after the Knysna fiasco, the documentary The Bus: The Blues on strike arrives on Netflix at a time when France is just starting to dream of the next World Cup. The timing is not trivial. Indeed, the platform brought together several protagonists of this episode which lastingly damaged the image of the Blues: Patrice Evra, William Gallas, Bacary Sagna on the players’ side, but also François Manardo, the former press manager of the France team. And especially Raymond Domenech, who even I trust they are journal intimefed for years, to the production teams.
At his side in life at this time, Estelle Denis is also one of those who testify. The host, who then presented 100% Foot on M6, looks back on events that she has clearly not forgotten. And for good reason: what she describes goes beyond the framework of a simple sporting poor performance.
Raymond Domenech reveals what Nicolas Anelka would have said to him
It all started in reality at Euro 2008. France was eliminated in the first round, it was a humiliation. In the documentary, she says she saw Raymond Domenech with misty eyes. And it is precisely in this moment of total defeat that the ex-coach decides, with a raised microphone, to publicly announce his intention to ask Estelle to marry you. Today, the ex-couple is separated, Estelle Denis has started a new life with a sportsman and Raymond Domenech has married his new partner in Italy.
This sequence has become cult, but the main person involved experienced it very differently: she says she called back her companion at the time for the “rotâ€without mincing his words. “Worst moment, worst request in historyâ€she summarizes. The next two years, she simply describes them as hell. And hell took a very concrete form upon returning to France after the 2010 World Cup. The Blues returned with their tails between their legs, eliminated in the first round, after a resounding strike called by the exclusion of Nicolas Anelka following the front page publication of The Team from a sentence he said at halftime of the match against Mexico. What Raymond Domenech formally contests in the documentary: according to him, Nicolas Anelka simply told him “You just have to make it your shit team… et the familiarity would have been the worst part of all that.
Estelle Denis and Raymond Domenech threatened: they received words on their windshield and under their door
This is where Estelle Denis delivers what is undoubtedly the most chilling sequence of the documentary. While the controversy swells in France, she finds herself suffering the consequences head-on. Of the death threats left on his windshield. Insults slipped under his door. The couple had to flee. “I was really scared…she said simply. Words that weigh heavily, and which remind us to what extent the passion for football can turn into something much less glorious.
For his part, Raymond Domenech assumes with a form of disarming serenity, he who wrote in his diary that he did not care about communication, that they could “everyone go fuck yourselfâ€. Fifteen years later, from his sofa, he admits to having been hated as a player, then hated as a coach and says that it kept him going.
Netflix documentary on the Blues strike in 2010: Netflix puts forward a hypothesis about the mole of the France team
The documentary does not just reawaken old wounds. He also puts forward a hypothesis on the identity of the famous mole which would have fed The Team from the locker room and drops a name at the very end, which we’ll let you discover for yourselves.
One month before the start of the 2026 World Cup, this documentary comes as a reminder that French football also knows how to write its most beautiful pages through pain. Waiting for, The Bus: The Blues on strike East watch now on Netflixif only to understand how a simple informal greeting could set an entire nation on fire.
