Paul Pogba and Antoine Greizmann headline a French squad full of youthful exuberance for the upcoming European Championships. As hosts, France will have the weight of expectation on their shoulders to win their first international tournament since 2000. A talented side, many onlookers see them as a reincarnation of the golden generation that dominated world football two decades ago. Despite their ability, global attention will also be drawn to the constant threat of terrorism in the nation since last November’s Paris attacks. In such nerve-wracking times Pogba and his men are not just a football team. They are a symbol of a nation that urgently needs something to smile about.
It has been eighteen years since France last hosted an international football tournament, the FIFA World Cup in 1998. Expectations were not overly high for the French. They had failed to qualify four years earlier and were just beginning to introduce a new generation into the national side. Many of these young players were of African descent, and came from poor neighbourhoods in France. Together they changed the dynamic of the side, and introduced a new flavour of multi-culturalism. The team played impressively, and reached the final against defending champions, and expected winners, Brazil. Spurred on by their home supporters, France clinched a surprising 3-0 victory, thanks to two goals from legendary midfielder Zinedine Zidane.
It was France’s first World Cup victory, and it sent their citizens into a frenzy. For the first time, a nation that rarely took pride in their sports stars, came together in celebration. The streets of Paris were full of champagne, as people of all races and social classes partied the night away. The reaction was so immense that it even startled the players. As the side drove through Paris with the trophy aloft, Thierry Henry, only 20 at the time, was thanked by an elderly woman for giving France its greatest moment since the Liberation. “That’s when I realised how powerful sport is,” he said, “even if I don’t quite understand it.” The victory sparked a new era for France, and brought the nation together as one strong, multi-cultural society.
The Paris attacks in November may have been completely out of the blue, but it is nothing that Parisians have not suffered before. The 1990s was a tough decade for France, as rising unemployment, social fracas, and racial violence crippled the nation. Also, like today, the presence of Islamic terrorism had made the country tense and broken. In 1995, Algerian terrorists bombed several cities around France over a three-month period, killing eight, and injuring over a hundred. After the bombings last year, France have fallen into an eerily similar situation they were in twenty years ago. Armed police line the streets, looking for any kind of suspicious threat that could derail the nation further. With over 1.5 million tourists expected to arrive for the Euros next month, their job is about to get a whole lot tougher. They are aware that ISIS are almost certainly planning some sort of terrorist act during the tournament.
But this threat will not stop the French from supporting their team. They needed this. For a couple of weeks, they want to return to the nation they were after 1998. If anything were to overcome terrorism, it would be France winning the tournament. Eighteen years ago, Zidane, a French-born Algerian descendent, fired the side to glory, putting to bed the nerves created by Algerians less than three years earlier.
Last year’s attacks did not only affect the fans, they affected the players as well. Midfielder Lassana Diarra lost his cousin in the blasts, while Antoine Greizmann’s sister narrowly avoided death at the Bataclan concert hall where 87 others lay dead. Another attack was thwarted at the gates of Stade de France, where 80,000 people were watching France play Germany in a friendly game. However, the terrorists detonated their suicide belts, sending chilling echoes through the stadium, heard by fans both in the stands and those watching at home. Such events mean that the upcoming championships are about more than football for the French players. After hearing of his cousin’s death Diarra pleaded for the nation to stick together, “In this climate of terror, it is important for all of us who are representatives of this country and its diversity to speak and remain united against a horror that has no colour, no religion.”
This year the hosts are coached by Didier Deschamps, captain of the triumphant French teams at both the World Cup in 1998 and Euro 2000. He more than anyone will know how to win this time around. The team will look to its multi-culturalism and togetherness as forces to guide them through the tournament. Like 1998, there is a large group of youngsters that have broken into the team over the last few seasons. Pogba and Raphael Varane (both 23), Anthony Martial (20), and Kingsley Coman (19), are important pieces to the jigsaw puzzle that Deschamps has at his disposal. All four play at the biggest clubs in the world and are no strangers to the big stage. Both Pogba and Varane have competed in Champions League finals and were a part of the World Cup squad two years ago, while Martial and Coman have been key figures for their respective Manchester United and Bayern Munich sides this season.
Yet despite the talent around him, all eyes will fall on Pogba. He is to this team what Zidane was to that team in 1998. In many ways he is the successor to Zidane’s throne that was vacated a decade ago. He is an elegant dribbler, brilliant passer, and a leader of men. Like his predecessor, he plays at Italian club Juventus, a team he has just led to a fifth successive title. Just as so many other stars have aligned, surely this one has to as well.
Of course many obstacles stand in between France and a third European title, none more so than world champions Germany. The 2014 World Cup winners knocked France out at the quarter-final stage in Brazil, and the two teams are likely to face each other in the semi-finals this time around. But Varane has said that the players are not fazed. “Despite the youth of the group we can do it. We have a group that is capable of beating anyone,” he told reporters. On paper they certainly can match any team in world football. Some, including former World Cup winner Marcel Desailly believe that the current side is “technically better than class of 1998, 2000.”
Such praise by former stars has given France the belief that this could be their year. It has been a long time since the nation last tasted glory, and given the circumstances, a victory here will be the ultimate retribution for those who lost their lives in November. The strong resemblance to the 1998 side will give the players and fans the hope they need to achieve greatness. With two weeks until kick off, the world watches as France prepare to enter a new era for both football and as a nation. Sport has the ability to bring people together more than anything else. A victory for France at the European Championships, would be a victory for the world in the fight against terrorism.