Kylian Mbappé tames the right wing to address France’s problems
France's Kylian Mbappé (right) and Austria's Nicolas Seiwald battle for the ball. Picture: Nick Potts/PA Wire.
L'ironie of it all was immediately apparent: after this week of all weeks Kylian Mbappé had to come tame the right wing to fix France’s problems.
Half-time was hovering into view above Dusseldorf’s confounding arena — a sturdy steely data centre-cum-car park on the outside, steep cauldron of cascading noise in — and Didier Deschamps’ blue bloods were just beginning to toil.
Christoph Baumgartner had wasted a glorious opening for Austria. The captain sensed a fraught moment of French need and departed safe territory on the left to wade into weeds on the right. With a flicker and a feint of his blurring feet he hit the line and cut back a cross which Maximilian Wöber, who shall henceforth be known by the honorific ‘The Hapless’, hung his heavy head out and skewed it into his own goal.
It wasn’t pretty but it was enough, N’Golo Kante’s remember-me masterclass helping Deschamps’ side persevere when Austria surely deserved something. Mbappé was far from perfect but helped too. There will be more fights to come but if France are to make it to Euro 2024’s final day, a Bastille Day in Berlin where the country’s existential crisis may be on show for the world to see, this was a fitting start.
Within 45 seconds of kickoff, the mass of bleu stacked top to bottom behind Mike Maignan’s goal began a viking thunderclap. With their tricolores momentarily dropped and arms upstretched they cracked and slapped in unison. Most striking thought was that, save a slightly deeper shade of blue across their chests, it could just as easily have been Iceland’s pale army doing the clapping. Deschamps had named a team with just three white players in the starting XI, 27 per cent. Those thunderclapping them on in the stands and earlier on the streets of Dusseldorf were, to this observer’s eye, more than 95 per cent white.
It has admittedly usually been the case with the French national team and particularly so on the road at major tournaments. Yet when the 48 hours which preceded their liftoff in Germany saw first Marcus Thuram and then Mbappé use pre-match media appearances to sound urgent, unequivocal warnings to the French public to step back from the brink and not send the country lurching to the racist right, the racial disparity between team and tribe hit home.
“We all need to fight daily so that this doesn’t happen and that the National Rally does not succeed,” Thuram had said on Saturday when asked about the polling that Marine Le Pen’s extremists are on track to win the snap election called by Emmanuel Macron, which will take place on June 30 and July 7.
The captain followed it up by urging France’s youth to vote and warned that “extremists are at the gates of power”. The shock election has ensured that French sport and politics will mix like never before. The Olympic Games is just around a Parisian corner. The poll’s impact on Euro 2024 is even more urgent: if Le Pen’s party were to win it could be her pick for Prime Minister who would cheer France on in the tournament’s final on July 14 in Berlin.
Before then, there’s a lot of water to go under many bridges on both sides of a French-German border less than three hours from Dusseldorf. The French had looked at home early on with Thuram and Mbappé alternating the left and central roles in Deschamps’ four-man attack. The captain fired his first warning at Patrick Pentz’s goal after just eight minutes, rippling the side netting.
But Ralf Ragnick’s side have proven a vexing prospect for many comers, one loss in 16 going back almost two years testament to that. They grew gradually but impressively. Konrad Laimer and Stefan Posch were locking things down out Mbappé’s way and a contest lacking in clear chances but plentiful in quality and suspense grew.
Even with the French lead, tension hung heavily through the second half, Mbappé inexplicably butchering a golden opening on 55 minutes after racing through, Thuram missing a couple more. With Marko Arnautović shuffling into the fray in this tournament summer of the totemic unit frontman, danger persisted. Austria worked ferociously, Kante somehow working harder. It never felt safe which was apt for these Gallic times. But not just Gallic.
For those at home who peer across the Celtic Sea and see the sense of national turmoil, the fabric of France tearing at the seams, and shake heads, don’t be so bloody naive. This is all but a warning. Our house may be distant, smaller, but it’s made of fragile glass.
Some pointed to Rhasidat Adeleke’s conquering of Rome last week as the most timely riposte to rising racism in Ireland. “Adeleke’s heroics came at the perfect time to silence far-right hate spewers” went a national newspaper headline, one variation on a common theme. The intro argued that Adeleke’s historic medal haul arriving as “far-right candidate after far-right candidate was eliminated from local and European elections” was “poetic”.
Yet we now know that the verses of hate still spewed forth and left the sprinter in “the most pain I've ever seen her have” according to a coach. We also know that while there was no electoral revolution, it was was still a landmark with multiple far-right candidates elected. Ireland’s xenophobic mutants may creep slower than French counterparts but creep they do.
Vigilance is imperative. After an ugly facial injury Mbappé was off the field as Deschamps’ side stuck it out, Kante vigilant to the very last. The treacherous trek to Berlin and Bastille Day moves on.
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