The opinion that every man has two countries, his own and France, could have come only from a Frenchman. Now, they would have us believe that everyone has at least one soccer team, and it is not Brazil.
The last time this many Frenchmen kissed each other, one of them had just invented champagne.
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And when they weren’t doing that, they were leaving lip prints all over the hardware they were passing around for winning the World Cup, not a cup at all but more like a grapefruit perched on top of a log.
From Lille to Nice to Nantes, up the Champs-Elysees and down the Seine, in the chateaux and on the streets, France allowed itself to roar, long, loud and far into the summer night. A rough translation is as follows:
“We’re Number Un. We’re Number Un.”
There has not been this kind of celebration in Paris since Ernest Hemingway liberated the bar at the Ritz Hotel.
The little team that could, did. It won a soccer game. Not just won a soccer game but the biggest soccer game there is, against the biggest team there is, by the biggest score anyone could have imagined.
France whipping Brazil 3-0 is like, oh, Vancouver beating the Bulls by 50, the Cubs sweeping the World Series against the Yankees, like the Bears beating the Packers at all.
The closest thing we’ve had to this would be the U.S. hockey team beating the Soviets in the ’80 Olympics, only with Bordelaise sauce.
Yet, for all the suturing of divisions within France the success of the soccer team was supposed to have accomplished, all the use of the nationalistic gusto made by politicians, all the flag-waving, horn-tooting, look-at-us celebrating, it was in the end a bunch of jocks in short pants whacking around a ball with their feet.
While it hardly seems necessary to have wasted five weeks and untold amounts of cheese to puff up the home side, the 16th World Cup was essentially harmless.
The final was bad soccer, mostly on the part of the Brazilians, who apparently thought they had won the Cup by beating the Netherlands. They could not defend a corner kick and they were too busy doing the individual samba over the ball to pass it to each other.
From this there will be no great expansion of soccer into places that do very well without it, including France itself, which will nurse its hangover through Bastille Day, get on with the Tour de France and take care of the truly important matter of summer, getting out of Paris.
Soccer was a nice circus for France, and darned if the place didn’t act nearly civil as a host, but as it was with the U.S. after the ’94 World Cup, no lasting soccer stain will be left.
There is not even a French team set to go into the freshly minted 80,000-seat Stade de France, mostly because that would be about 65,000 more seats than necessary.
The place may never be filled again unless for a bicycle race or a Taste of Gaul cookoff.
In fact, the very turf upon which Brazil lost to the newly beloved Le Bleu Sunday night is going to be auctioned off to help pay the debt for putting on the World Cup. It will be cut into 2-inch squares and each one sold for about $20, which is what anything costs in Paris.
“Cafe au lait, s’il vous plait.”
“$20, please.”
Talk about your lawn sale. They hope to raise about $70 million. Now, if they marketed the grass as a fresh herb . . .
Nor from this World Cup will come the one great soccer hero, as was Pele or Maradona. In fact, the big star going in, Ronaldo of Brazil, may have lost his hyped majesty. Ronaldo played so badly in the final, he may have to start using two names.
He was essentially worthless during the biggest occasion of his life. I don’t see a new marketing campaign, “I Want to be like Ron,” unless someone has a deep wish to be a hat rack.
The French heroes will remain French, Zinedine Zidane, Fabien Barthez and the rest. They will go play soccer for bigger money and greater respect in Italy or England, where most of them work already.
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Soccer is where it was before all of this started, a passion in some places, an amusement in others and an afterthought everywhere else.
Next the thing goes to Japan and Korea, indicating either that the World Cup has grown too large for one country or that it is now pulling its global scam two dupes at a time.