France finally begins its UEFA Euro 2020 campaign tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 June) when it squares off against Germany at the Munich Football Arena.
The reigning World Champions are hoping to win it all this year, improving on their vice championship at the 2016 Euro, and repeating the back-to-back World Cup–Euro accomplishment of the mythical 1998 and 2000 teams.
The symbolism is rife this year, just as it was at the 2018 Russia FIFA World Cup, 20 years after Les Bleus snagged their first-ever étoile following a 3-0 triumph over Brazil on home soil. Even though we’re playing this tournament in 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the original kickoff by a year, this Euro is still known as Euro2020, a nod to the competition’s 60th anniversary.
The very first UEFA European Championship finals were held in France in July 1960, but the concept was born several decades earlier. Frenchman Henri Delaunay, then the FFF Secretary General, first devised the notion of a European-wide tournament in 1927 during an era of increased international friendly matches and competitions; the sport was a regular Olympic feature following its 1900 Paris Games debut. But Delaunay’s idea was not realized until 1960, five years after his death.
That year, although France finished in fourth place, Just Fontaine emerged as the tournament’s top scorer with five goals scored during the finals qualification rounds, according to UEFA. Of note is that the Euro qualification rounds occurred not only in 1960, but in 1958 and 1959. Fontaine notched two goals against Greece during France’s 7-1 victory on October 1, 1958, while on December 13, 1959, he helped France best Austria, 5-2, with three goals.
To provide some context, 1960 was a pivotal year for French sports. That June, Wilt Chamberlain and the Harlem Globetrotters took the countryside by storm. But the Rome Summer Games from late August into early September, marked a “zero hour” for French sport, illuminating a sports crisis that would also touch football (soccer), one that would not begin to abate until the 1970s.
The 1960 tournament marked the growing idea of an integrated “Europe” following the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, the predecessor of today’s European Union. France was at the heart of European integration post-1945 thanks to visionaries like Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, and the UEFA Euro was yet another effort to bind the continent together in a growing sense of shared history and future trajectory. Thus it was not surprising that Frenchman Michel Platini, as then UEFA President in 2012, proposed holding the 2020 tournament across 12 European cities to celebrate the Euro at 60.[1]
This month, I’m watching a few key storylines as France embarks upon its quest to claim the European title:
1. How Didier Deschamps translates one of the tournament’s strongest teams on paper into an on-pitch ensemble. Les Bleus are among the favorites to win it all. They have the raw talent, especially their formidable offense of Karim Benzema-Kylian Mbappé-Antoine Griezmann. But, as we know, talent alone cannot win trophies and titles.
2. Much is about confidence. As I wrote in 2018 for The Athletic, having the self-confidence to be a winner can make a huge impact. That summer, I spoke with longtime coach Yassin Fadil, who explained:
“For a long time, France was considered as a country that lost, a loser,” Fadil told The Athletic. French athletes, including the players of the national soccer team, would go far but never clinch first place, results that could undermine mental toughness. “I’ve seen this myself. When I was a young player, I didn’t have fear, but I had an inferiority complex.”
Winning the 1998 World Cup on home soil was a game changer. “This courage that they were given,” Fadil said of the victory, “that’s now there in the attitudes of soccer players. They don’t fear anyone, and this is an important factor.”
France today have confidence in abundance. I’m less concerned about this than I am….
3. Team chemistry, which is an equally important ingredient. While much of Les Bleus this year are culled from the 2018 squad, the integration of Karim Benzema after multiple years purposefully left off of the coach’s selection list for a variety of reasons (including allegedly blackmailing a teammate over a sex tape) is a key storyline to watch. Benzema is one of the most gifted players of his generation—if not for France overall. Initial reports indicate that he’s playing well off-pitch with his Les Bleus teammates, especially Mbappé.
Speaking of Mbappé, the 22-year old has come into form on and off the field since his stunning 2018 performances in Russia. This recent Esquire profile is a good deep dive for non-French speakers, and speaks to “the making of” Mbappé as an athlete plugged into the activism and social consciousness of the 2020s. But his recent reported clashes with veteran French international Olivier Giroud, while at the end of the day, perhaps just a blip on the radar, has some French football fans slightly anxious about the ways these personalities will mesh for (hopefully) a month. Its hoped that this fissure has been healed, for now, especially after Mbappé’s recent press conference.
Lastly, many English-language media outlets are scrutinizing the makeup of the French team, reviving in some ways the 2018 “debate” over the players’ identities. While some journalists note that Les Bleus hail from the country’s minority communities, understand that this has always been the case. Because France has long been a destination for immigrants, for various reasons, its national football teams have constituted these changing demographics based on the fluctuations of its immigration history.
The French sides during the 1960 Euro qualification and finals were composed of players from the country’s minority communities, including captain and all-time great Raymond Kopa, né Kopaszewski, whose Polish parents settled in northern France in the immediate post-World War One period. For those who would like more information on this historical element, please consult this 2018 study of the ways that immigration and migration are reflected in the national football teams. It’s a thorough overview, provides solid data and details, and was produced by ACHAC, a group of researchers that focus on questions related to colonialism and post-colonialism.
That’s it for now—more on the other side of the Group Phase. Allez Les Bleus!
[1] In 2015, Platini was banned from football administration over ethical conflicts of interest by FIFA, a ban that has since expired.
