Neil W. Blackmon
NICE, FRANCE —
The Allianz Riviera is a bumpy freeway’s ride from the hustle and bustle of the Mediterranean resorts, seaside views, shops and open-air cafes that have drawn people seeking holiday respite and joy to Nice for centuries but on a glorious cool, evening that’s perfect for soccer, or anything really, you feel right in the thick of it, this festive, eagerly anticipated World Cup.
No country has ever held both the Men’s and Women’s World Cup trophy at once, but in the tournament opener, France very much looked like a team that could unify the belts. In front of a rapturous crowd in Paris, France ushered in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup with stylish swagger, destroying South Korea 4-0 and justifying the formidable hype around the team inside and outside France in the process.
In Nice, you could feel the crowd and city buzzing with anticipation as early as the evening before, when the cafes and pubs brimmed full with tricolored revelers who danced and drank and sang in the hotels and villas until late in the evening.
In truth, the excitement has been building in France for months. When French manager Corrine Diacre selected her team, she did so to a record-breaking audience of millions on French television.
It’s difficult to go more than a few city blocks herewithout seeing some reminder of the World Cup, and a number of boutiques offer not only exclusive FIFA World Cup merchandise, but replica shirts of French female stars like Eugenie Le Sommer, Wendie Renard and of course, the immaculate midfielder Amandine Henry, one of the best players on earth.
That trio, along with longtime mainstays Elise Bussaglia, Sarah Bouhaddi and Gaëtane Thiney, have propelled Les Bleues to new heights in the sport, with the French consistently considered a contender at major tournaments, from the World Cup, Euro and Olympics to the prestigious annual women’s events like the Algarve and SheBelieves Cups.
Despite the talent and rising expectations that accompany it, France has fallen just short of capturing a major title. The US clipped them in the semifinals of the 2011 Women’s World Cup and France settled for fourth, which remains their best finish on this stage. They lost to Japan in the semifinals of the London games in 2012 and haven’t seen a semifinal since, suffering crushing quarterfinals losses in every international tournament since.
And yet this time it feels different.
France has been building to this competition for years, Caroline Lemieux, a Nice boutique owner and avid football fan tells me this week.
“First we lacked experience in big moments, as in 2011 when we were better than the United States in stretches but not up to the moment,” Lemieux tells me. “Montreal, to lose in penalties (at the 2015 World Cup in Canada) to Germany, that was excruciating. But now we are home, and all of France behind them. This is the time.”
It was hard, watching France on opening night, to not agree with Caroline’s assessment.
But there were moments of concern in Nice, despite a rollicking, roaring crowd that refused to sit throughout the ninety minutes, regardless of how proceedings were playing out on the pitch.
Norway’s high press bothered the French, and Norway’s manager, Martin Sjögren, engaged the French midfield at a much higher line of confrontation than Diacre’s side appeared to expect.
The Norwegians, determined to be a team defined more by how they play on the field than the superstar they are playing without, nearly score ten minutes into the game and spend much of the opening half hammering away at the French right flank, a clear weakness in Diacre’s armor. Still, without Lyon-based Ada Hegerberg, who is skipping the World Cup- and all internationals- until Norway’s FA adopts serious equality measures for the women’s team– the Norwegians struggled to make a breakthrough.
There were empty seats at the Allianz Riviera, but there was also a rollicking and roaring crowd, waving, singing and never sitting.
Finally, in the second half, France found a breakthrough, le moment de briller from Le Sommer who beat two defenders and whipped a cross towards Valerie Guavin who, however unconvincingly, tapped the ball home from close range.
For the crowd, and a to-that-point clearly flustered French team, it was a moment of sweet relief, but the joy was short lived.
Less than ten minutes later, and with fans still singing Guavin’s name, Isabell Herlovsen broke down the left and put a cross across goal. Renard, an obdurate, imperious CB who has won multiple Champions Leagues titles with Lyon and has 100 caps already despite still being well south of 30, appeared to have the cross cutout but then, astonishingly and without a Norway player near her, placed the ball into the bottom corner from six yards out. As Renard crumpled to the ground in agony, it was a reminder that whatever the measure of their individual brilliance, France will only go as far as their collective ability to avoid disaster takes them.
“Those are the types of mistakes and errors we have to clean up and eliminate, of course,” Diacre said following the game. “Errors that are unforced are the difference when talent levels are nearly equal.”
Diacre’s kindness to Norway is noted but in truth, without Hegerberg to steer the ship, the talent on the field in Nice was by no means “nearly equal.”
France were- are- the far better side, led by a golden generation and above all, the nearly peerless Henry, who dances and glides through the midfield as if happily on ice skates. There’s nothing Henry does that she doesn’t make look simple, which has always been the easiest way to describe a masterful player.
France have plenty of masters, as most favorites do. There’s the technical mastery of Thiney, the positional and athletic mastery of Renard, the savvy of Bussaglia, the lethal speed of Amel Majri and Kadidatou Diani, the youthful bravery of Delphine Cascarino.
But more than any player France have, Henry is the reason the host country can and very well may win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjKbwi8G1NI
Diacre might not say it out loud, but she knows it, having named Henry captain before the tournament.
“You have to know how to win in these situations,” Diacre said of Henry, before the tournament, a sentiment that recalled another recent French World Cup manager, the now immortal World Cup winner Didier Deschamps. “Amandine has tremendous quality, we all see this. But she also has the capacity to win, to lead.”
She’s composed on the ball, good in traffic, a deft passer, a stout positional defender who whizzes to break up passes as if she saw the angles moves ahead. She’s all those things and she’s a player with a feel for the big moment,whether it is hitting an equalizer in a Champions League final or stroking a curling thunderbolt to usher in a World Cup.
WHAT A STRIKE BY AMANDINE HENRY ?? pic.twitter.com/FwXfNZWYJ6
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 7, 2019
Henry ability to win has already help deliver club championships on multiple continents, keying Lyon’s consecutive Champions League victories in Europe and before that, winning a NWSL Championship with the Portland Thorns.
Richard Farley, a veteran American soccer journalist who was writing nationally about NWSL during Henry’s tenure in Portland, remembered her as a player who seemed to play the game at another speed, with an intelligence rarely seen on a soccer field.
“I felt like I learned a little more about the game every time I watched Amandine Henry play,” Farley told me this this week. “The choices she’d make, with and without the ball: In real time, they’d challenge me to think about the game faster and from more angles than I did, before. I’m not sure any central midfielder promotes a team’s balance as well as she does. Thinking back at some of her games in Portland, my brain activates like I’m being challenged by a great book. People still talk about her.”
All that is left for Henry (and France) to win is a major international trophy.
With great talent comes great expectation, and playing at home, the pressure is even greater. But the French team seems to be embracing that part of the process.
“The World Cup is a huge moment, with expectations and pressure of being at home just part of that,” Bouhaddi says following the game. “With players like (Renard), Henry, Eugenie, we are always a team with a player who is a moment away.”
In Nice, that moment came through controversy.
Ingrid Engen, all of 21 and having played a marvelous game to that point, got caught a step behind Marion Torrent. Racing to beat her to the ball, Engen took a wild whiff at the ball and, in the process, appeared to strike Torrent in the thigh. After VAR (video) review, a penalty was given and Le Sommer slotted the ensuing penalty home for the winning goal.
Sometimes you need a little luck to win a World Cup, even if it is controversial luck.
It was but a moment among several moments of VAR controversy at this still young FIFA Women’s World Cup, the first such women’s tournament with VAR capabilities. That such a pivotal call aided the host country, of course, only heightened conversation of the legitimacy.
Those debates will continue.
What appears beyond debate now is that France will win its group, setting up yet another chance for Les Bleues to weather a decisive quarterfinal.
This time, the way the groups and knockout stage bracket is set up, the United States, star-laden reigning World Champions seeking their fourth star,seem destined to stand in their way. In years past, such a challenge would be too much for the French.
As night fell on the French Riviera, the French team- and their fans like Lemieux- didn’t seem too anxious to talk about a potential United States quarterfinal and all that would mean.
And why should they be, with this team to challenge the Americans and this country behind them.
Perhaps Nice is just a place in France, but happiness is watching Amandine Henry glide up and down a soccer field with the salty, sweet Mediterranean air lingering gently in the night air.
“This tournament demands focus on what is next, not what may be. It’s the moment that matters,” Bouhaddi says.
Lemieux agreed. “The whole world is talking about the United States. Let France have France.”
Neil W. Blackmon is co-founder of The Yanks Are Coming. Follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon.