In 1998, after winning the World Cup as host, the French team was enthroned as a benchmark for multiraciality. The mix of players with North African ancestry (Zidane or Djorkaeff), Antillean (Karembeu), and native footballers such as Dugarry, Barthez or the current coach Didier Deschamps gave France its first World Cup. The second, in Russia, in 2018, with Mbappé, Griezmann, Kanté, Pogba, Lloris or Giroud was confirmation that mixing can be as winning as it is enriching.
Yesterday, one day before the debut against Austria in Düsseldorf (9:00 p.m. TVE), and in the face of the threat of a repeat in the legislative elections on June 30 of the victory achieved in the European elections by the National Regrouping chaired by the far-right Marine Le Pen, Mbappé took up again for the tricolor team the flag of diversity and multicultural coexistence that the internationals of ’98 raised. “I don’t like extremes, those that divide,” warned the brand new signing of Real Madrid in the press room of the flirtatious Düsseldorf Arena Stadion.
Raised in the Paris suburb of Bondie, Mbappé’s speech was aimed at taking the baton of Zinedine Zidane as the emblem and captain of the French national team to oppose ultranationalism. Zidane already attacked Jean Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, in the 2002 elections after he questioned the identity purity of the ’98 team. “We have to think about the consequences that voting for a party that does not correspond to nothing with the values of France. I am French. My father is Algerian. “I am proud to be French and I am proud that my father is Algerian,” proclaimed Zidane, who supported the conservative Jacques Chirac. In 2017, as coach of Real Madrid, in a press conference, Zidane also positioned himself against Marine Le Pen and asked for the vote for Emmanuel Macron. “My position is the same as in 2002,” he said then.
Chosen by Deschamps as captain after the World Cup in Qatar, Mbappé debuts the armband today in a major national team competition. During the week he has had to deal with an issue that he has gone in crescendo in the rooms and common rooms of the French retreat outside Paderborn. First it was Ousmane Dembélé who on Thursday made a simple call for a massive vote. On Saturday, Marcus Thuram, his father Lilian was a member of the 98 team and is a renowned activist for solidarity and integration causes, was more direct. “The situation is sad, very serious. I found out about the National Regrouping victory after Sunday’s game against Canada and we were all a little shocked in the locker room. We have to tell everyone to go vote and fight daily so that the RN does not win,” said the Inter Milan attacker. This is Mbappé’s close friend since they both met in the lower categories of the French team. His captain defended him yesterday: “I don’t think he went one step further. He talked about values, diversity, tolerance and respect. To me, he didn’t go too far. I think we are still in a country where there is freedom of expression and he gave his opinion and I agree with him.”
If on Saturday the French federation invited in a statement not to politicize the national team and yesterday Deschamps announced that as coach he will not talk about the issue until after the Euro Cup, Mbappé ended up breaking the deck. “Many times we say that you should not mix politics with listening. I agree when it comes to routine matters, but when it comes to situations like this it is very important,” Mbappé warned.
Expected as the big star of this Euro Cup and as the player destined to govern France on the field, Mbappé does not consider that his statements or those of his teammates influence the team’s performance. “We are very aware of the importance of the match against Austria. “We are in a competition to defend the colors of our country,” he concluded.
Some discomfort in his knee and back have kept Mbappé out of some training sessions. On Thursday, he was in the gym. He emerged from the entrance to the locker room in the final minutes, when his teammates were playing one of those intense little games on a small field. After exchanging a few words with the physios and giving some autographs to the organization’s volunteers, Mbappé stood on the side of the field. He concentrated and silently followed every action of the game. He emulated a captain checking the status of the troops before entering combat. He only saved a shot from Griezmann to the post, a bicycle kick from Giroud and several dribbles from Dembélé. All of them examples of the multiracial France that Mbappé defended yesterday.
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