Apologies for the radio silence. I’ve been down the basketball rabbit hole, working to finish the book manuscript by January 1 if Bloomsbury has any hope of publishing it in time for the 2023 FIBA World Cup (and a nod to the original inspiration there).
But! Given the buts that have enabled my footballing Les Bleus to reach the FIFA World Cup finals, it’s important to understand that, regardless of what happens on the pitch tomorrow, France has already won at this year’s World Cup.
Les Bleus’ deep tournament run validates anew the successes and importance of formation à la française. The French approach to detecting and training football talent produces a staggering depth of talent, one that’s enabled them to reach the competition’s final phase with what many might call their B team, given the number of injuries of so many pivotal players.
The abilities of this approach is also reinforced by the number of players forged by the French system who competed at this World Cup: 59. According to Quartz, just 37% of French-born players at the tournament are on Les Bleus; the rest played for other teams, including Tunisia, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Qatar. That’s a bit bonkers for a country of some 67.5 million people.
That’s why formation à la française, its approach to producing the best quality players, not the highest number of players, enables France to flex its football diplomacy muscle in unique ways. It’s instructive for so often the conversation about the soft power that a sporting mega event like the FIFA World Cup can confer focuses upon the host nation. Or on the symbolism and attention that a country can generate from participation, such as Wales at the group stage, or Morocco in the match for third place. And rightly so; the Atlas Lions’ campaign is a huge success on any measure, sports diplomacy or otherwise.
But what sets French football diplomacy apart is that what we see on-pitch is just the tip of the iceberg. When Les Bleus take the pitch against Argentina in the final, they are the highest visibility point of a larger pyramid that focuses on more than just producing quality players. Instead, formation à la française emphasizes education in the humanistic sense, forging relationships, and self-awareness.
“Be the change you want to be.”
“Be the change you want to be.” That is one of the key concepts that drive policies, approaches, and overall education today at the National Football Institute (INF) at Clairefontaine. Or at least, that’s the key message relayed by a French Football Federation delegation to students in my Sociology of Sport: Sports Diplomacy and Politics class at New York University earlier this fall. Notably, this was one of the key points the students kept returning to during the semester as we talked more broadly about football diplomacy, World Cup, and the French government’s sports diplomacy policies.
It’s perhaps a fitting mantra, too, for formation à la française was built as a response to crisis. Several intertwined crises, in fact. The first stemmed from the larger sports crisis unmasked by dismal French results at the 1960 Rome Olympics; the country’s two silver and three bronze medals translated into a 25th place finish in the overall medal table, a far cry from the rejuvenated, resurgent image that then-president General Charles de Gaulle sought to portray at home and to the world. Interwoven in the sports crisis’ roots was the larger youth crisis: how to assimilate an unprecedentedly large youth population, the baby boom generation with its proclivities for U.S. and British popular culture influences, into the state’s institutions and cultural fabric. Then there was the football crisis: the inability to fare well in the international or continental competitions after a third-place 1958 World Cup finish.
That prompted innovation, and an openness to outside influences. As a result, in the 1970s, the FFF instituted a series of youth detection and training programs while its affiliated professional clubs in L1 (and eventually, L2) created youth academies. Early returns were those of the Michel Platini generation who led Les Bleus’ resurgence in the 1980s, but fully realized in the 1990s when the 1998 World Cup and 2000 European crowns validated formation à la française. The tweaks to the system in the 2000s has produced the current generations, the 2016 European vice champions and 2018 FIFA victors who right now are vying for their place in history.
Despite unfulfilled promises of a new acceptance for a multi-cultural France after the team’s 1998 win, the national teams, and football more generally, have long served as a portrait of modern France. As Laurent Dubois argues, this team shows that “Another France is Possible.” The football players perhaps do not speak much of it, but the national basketball team players are proud to emphasize their French identity and pride representing the country while also acknowledging pride if they have double- or triple- cultural heritages thanks to France’s complicated colonial history.
All of that is to say: this background enriched and enriches French football, and empowers a football diplomacy to communicate, represent, and negotiate about the modern-day country beyond the pitch.
Les Bleus’ ability to win it all on the world stage in 1998, 2018, and make it this far in 2022 were validations of formation à la française. One might argue that the French born and trained players on other national teams at this tournament are also testaments to this system of detection and development. But what those wins did was enable the FFF to build a new type of football diplomacy, to go out into the world and engage in ways that other national federations are unable, or unwilling, to do.
Some of the key takeaways about French football diplomacy, as the FFF explained to my students this semester, include:
1. The power of sport, and football more specifically, to open doors in ways that normal policy or other cultural endeavors cannot.
2. To build relationships; since 1998, the FFF has engaged in knowledge and technical exchange with others worldwide, particularly Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Middle East, to help power-up these countries’ own home-grown football development programs. The FFF has partnered with Major League Soccer (MLS) to train league coaches since 2013, as well as help place French footballers with NCAA programs via FFFUSA. In the process, there is a natural exchange of different football and national cultures.
3. Relationship-building is for more than merely altruistic purposes. It’s a way to learn about yourself at the same time, not just on a human or national football level. Self-awareness is important for how it can inspire improvements to your own programs and improve lives.
There’s obviously downsides to what the FFF itself communicates, represents, and negotiates about, given the raft of scandals surfaced over the past year. And France’s football system, like all others, isn’t perfect, nor is it entirely free of the issues that plague society at large.
The images of President Emmanuel Macron in Doha or the team’s unbridled locker room and hotel lobby celebrations to the soundtrack of 1990s dance anthem “Freed From Desire” may dominate public perceptions of the country and its football. Yet, behind the scenes, their on-pitch wins have enabled the country’s football emissaries, whether formally credentialed or informally as private citizens, to have a much larger imprint and influence around the world, and to “be the change that you want to be.”