LES BLEUS, STARS

NOTE: I wrote this post several days before a devastating fire tore at the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. I decided to sit on it for a short while, but I'm posting it now. It's a scattered piece, really, but one that maybe touches on what soccer is and isn’t.

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France recently played Iceland in a Euro 2020 qualifier and for days the matchup left me thinking about the 2018 FIFA World Cup and, more specifically, the French men's squad.

The play itself didn't inspire my thoughts. (In fact, France's 4-0 win against Iceland was, for the most part, entirely expected. For Iceland, who beat enormous odds just to play last June, it was back to reality as young French superstar Kylian Mbappé found the holes in Iceland's defense and led Les Bleus to unambiguous success.) Instead, the roster held my interest. Head coach Didier Deschamps had made few changes from his 2018 World Cup-winning side, a side that had many looking back in time.

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In 1998, then-captain Zinedine Zidane led a multicultural French team to the promised land of international soccer, beating juggernaut Brazil in the World Cup final at the Stade de France in Paris. The victory helped inspire the moniker Black, Blanc, and Beur, an celebration of the squad's Black, white, and Arab players. It was more than just a celebration, though, as many saw Black, Blanc, and Beur as the new French paradigm: an integrated Eden.

Players like Zidane, born in Marseille to Algerian immigrants, as well as Patrick Vieira and Lilian Thuram, born in Senegal and Guadeloupe, respectively, were the evidence of successful (or imminently successful) racial and cultural integration.

But prognostication’s a tricky business.

Even before France's World Cup victory in 1998, politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, called the team's makeup artificial and referred to some players as foreigners. Years later, after Les Bleus failed to win a match in the South Africa World Cup, French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut said ethnic and religious divisions undermined the team and he criticized the provenance of some Black players from the banlieues, or suburbs, of Paris. The French Football Federation itself was even subject to allegations that it had in place discriminatory racial quotas to limit he number of dual-national youth players in development.

The idyll in Eden, it seems, was a fantasy.

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20 years after Zidane and Les Bleus won in Paris, the French men's squad again hoisted the FIFA World Cup — this time in Russia. Led by superstar Mbappé, players like Paul Pogba, N'Golo Kanté, and Samuel Umtiti became champions in the most compelling World Cup tournament in recent history. (UPDATE: As an American, and especially given the sorry state of my country, the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was a thrill and an inspiration. Megan Rapinoe and the national team are a must-watch, tenacious and compelling, and represent this country's best. Congratulations and thank you, USWNT.) In doing so, they’ve seemingly come to represent the new Black, Blanc, and Beur as immigrants, the children of immigrants, and Muslims.

But the moniker again misses the mark. Notwithstanding the poetry of the claim, soccer is not life. (Sit back down. Read on and you might find a better reason to jump out of your seat.) That said, to ignore the presence and accomplishments of players like Mbappé, Pogba, and Kante would be to err in equal measure.

France is arguably the single richest pool of football talent today.

At least 50 players at the 2018 World Cup in Russia were born in France and nearly 30 percent of those were born in Paris. Many of those players come from the banlieues of Paris, sometimes low-income areas and often populated by immigrants. In line with FIFA's laws on international play, some Parisian-born players represented countries like Portugal, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia. Indeed, France may not be Eden, but it's an undeniable wellspring of footballing brilliance.

And amid all that talent (and in the face of so much ignorance and bullshit), Mbappé and Co. have distinguished themselves — for both club and country.

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France continues to suffer the violence of racial and religious unrest, and despite that tragedy and trauma (and all the ill-conceived attempts to shoehorn Les Bleus into some Elysian ideal), the team’s talented players captivate and inspire. Reflecting on his 1998 World Cup win, Zidane said: “It was not about religion, the color of your skin, we didn’t care about that, we were just together and enjoyed the moment.”

Last year, Mbappé commented on such moments: “People come to the stadium to forget their lives for 90 minutes, and it’s up to us to take care of them, to take them out of their seats so they fall asleep with stars in their eyes.”

Too often, people force life on soccer. International tournaments, especially, can encourage false promises and tired symbolism. But symbols are relative and little in life is guaranteed. Zidane and Mbappé don't guarantee anything about life either, but they add an undeniable brilliance to a beautiful game. Outside of 90 minutes, they may serve as inspiration in an often ugly world, but during those 90 minutes, I hope they play so that I stand in awe. And then, maybe, fall asleep with stars in my eyes.

S