FRANCE WALKED ON AIR AND THEN WENT OVER THE MOON
Irish Times
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Tom Humphries was in Paris to witness a historic French victory in
the World Cup final with a 3-0 win over Brazil that was a product of
a performance full of passion and determination LA METAMORPHOSE! One
glance at St Denis tells you how hard pressed it is. Grey boxes strewn
on a concrete wilderness as the train shuttles by from wonderful
Paris to the cool halls of the airport. Last night it was the centre
of the world. The surreal, beautiful stadium which has been set down
here shook, quaked and rocked.
Tricolours rippled the sky. Songs raided the roof. Men cried. Women
danced.
Fireworks crackled. People got kissed who’d never been kissed
before. France became Champions of the World.
"This group of players was born for the World Cup," said Youri
Djorkaeff, the French midfielder of Armenian stock. That was just
the point, though. They weren’t born for it. They grafted. Brazilians
are born for it.
It must have been like this when the men in the Bible stepped from
the boat onto the surface of the water, when the first plane stayed
up in the air for breathless seconds, when Armstrong got moondust on
his earthly feet. Achievement which defied comprehension.
In Saint Denis they danced on air, walked on water, went over the
moon. France won the World Cup and men in blue shirts mounted the
steps and lifted the gold.
What a sensational night. The outsiders with nothing to offer except
their nation’s hospitality and their extraordinary defence beat the
Brazilians, brand leaders in the romance business. Beat them well,
with three goals, two of them functionally crafted, one of them the
crowning moment , a thing of beauty.
And they didn’t even have a striker. They didn’t have Laurent
Blanc. And in the end they didn’t have Marcel Desailly: but they had
the World Cup trophy hoisted into the Parisian sky.
Seldom has sport presented such a dramatic consummation of hope
and achievement. This was an evening when France was subconsciously
prepared to celebrate gallant defeat, to wonder at the journey their
largely workaday team had taken. Instead men grew into giants before
their eyes. Their goals came from midfielders. Two from Zidane and
the final one deep in injury time from the superlative Petit.
It was an extraordinary night.
Zinedine Zidane, a child of hard streets in Marseille, knew
the feeling of having his name chanted in every corner of the
republic. Zizou! Zizou! Zizou!
The little man with the bald patch and the snake’s smile was
everywhere. Every blade, every screen, every mouth, every
keyboard. Zizou! Zizou! Zizou!
Two matching goals both from near post headers in the first half
elevated Zidane to the pantheon. The son of a poverty-strained
family of Algerian immigrants, Zizou was the story of the evening,
the story of the World Cup, the story of France. Work, integration,
achievement. Zidane missed two games earlier in this World Cup having
copped a suspension for a silly foul. Last night he added atonement
to the list of his credits.
He was overshadowed in midfield, perhaps, by Emmanuel Petit, the
pony-tailed Arsenal midfielder who filled in at centre half when
Desailly was sent off and still found time to charge up field and
score the goal which finished the tournament and laid the Brazilians
in the ground.
Brazil were never what we had expected them to be. For a few mad
minutes before the kick-off, indeed, they were something else entirely,
sending out a team sheet without the name of Ronaldo on it. Another
appeared minutes later and Edmundo’s name had been erased and Ronaldo’s
name included.
Stories ran like bushfire around the stands of the Brazilians having
taken Ronaldo to hospital within an hour of the start of the game,
of dissent and turmoil beyond the dressingroom door. On the pitch the
reality looked depressingly prosaic. Ronaldo unfit. Dunga tired. Bebeto
uninspired.
"Everybody was very upset and very down about Ronaldo," said Brazil’s
coach Mario Zagallo afterwards at a bad-tempered press conference
which left more questions unanswered, "and the team played to less
than their full potential. It was indicative of the major problem
with Ronaldo. We were very inhibited."
What happened to Ronaldo is a little yarn for today or tomorrow. Last
night the Brazilian defence was the tale. More anaemic than their
history entitled them to be they seemed shaken by the vigour of the
French support and the ambition of the French attacks and the defiant
panache of the French defending.
Brazil’s defence had been rickety throughout this tournament and last
night it fell to dust. Junior Baiano was awful. Aldair slightly less
awful. The French knew they were on to something early on when they
drummed out three scoring chances in the first 10 minutes.
They pushed and pushed and felt the door scraping open. Youri Djorkaeff
missed two.
Stephane Guivarch began a chain of misses which on less charitable
occasions would have had him guillotined. Instead he’s moving to
Newcastle.
A couple of goals up at half-time, with a million tricolours fluttering
in front of their eyes and the words Allez. Allez. Allez buzzing
their ears. They hadn’t dared to have dreams of this.
The second half was a metaphor for the tournament France have
had. Defiance and defence. Resistance!
The Brazilians, treated to an interval with the smelling salts,
had come to.
The French defended with passion. Adversity mounted before
them. Brazilian near misses drew the breath from French lungs. For
the second successive game France had a centre half dismissed. The
perfection of Marcel Desailly’s tournament performances was marred
by a slightly harsh sending off for a second bookable defence.
It was the sort of setback the French have learned to deal with,
though. Petit dropped back. His clubmate Patrick Vieira arrived in
with regal coolness. The ship steadied.
There will be those curmudgeons who will say that the best team in
the tournament didn’t win. Perhaps, but it was splendid nonetheless.
France defended with such passion and cunning, went forward with such
naive enthusiasm, and sang the song of football like it is meant to
be sung. Last night the French won the best World Cup final in years.
Great occasions can do nothing for the terminally mean-spirited and
this was a great occasion, a great story, beautifully climaxed.