France’s Ghosts Return for the World Cup
Much has happened since the country won its last World Cup two decades ago, making this a bittersweet moment in a country always romancing the past.
As we flooded out Paris into the streets to celebrate France’s World Cup semifinal victory Tuesday night, I saw, here and there, people wearing jerseys from 1998. They are looser than the ones they sell now, a brighter blue, with a red stripe and a white collar. On the backs are the names of an older generation of players—Zidane, Thuram, Henry—who in that year won France’s first and only World Cup trophy. I imagined some had been carefully kept in closets for 20 years, maybe just brought out once or twice, waiting for a night like this one.
With France in the final of the World Cup on Sunday, it feels like
