Finally . . . It’s France
Don’t let those wire-rimmed, half-moon glasses fool you. Or the fact that he speaks softly. Or that he once considered becoming a priest.
Lilian Thuram is a soccer player extraordinaire.
And if anyone should be blamed for turning Paris into a horn-honking, flag-waving, drinks-are-on-the-house, stay-up-all-night city, it is the modest defender from the volcanic West Indian island of Guadeloupe.
Thuram, 26, could not have chosen a more propitious moment to explode on the World Cup scene.
His two second-half goals--both unexpected, both brilliantly scored--earned France a momentous 2-1 victory over Croatia before 77,000 at Stade de France on Wednesday night and a place in Sunday’s World Cup final against defending champion Brazil.
A more unlikely hero is difficult to imagine.
But, yes, that was Thuram being carried off the field on the shoulders of reserve goalkeeper Bernard Lama amid the bedlam inside the flying saucer-shaped stadium.
And, yes, that was Thuram high-fiving the player who had been expected to be France’s hero, midfielder Zinedine Zidane.
And, yes, all those cameras from all those hundreds of photographers were pointed his way in the aftermath of one of France’s most significant victories.
Never before have the French reached the World Cup final. Three times they had advanced to the semifinals only to fall at the penultimate hurdle.
Not this time.
Which is why “Allez les Bleus” was being sung well into the early morning hours along the Champs Elysees and every Rue This and Boulevard That in the French capital on Thursday morning.
And possibly in the Leeward Islands too.
Thuram, one of five children, was only 9 when his mother moved from Guadeloupe to Fontainebleau, near Paris, to seek work as a housekeeper. Money was tight, but one by one she managed to reunite the family.
Today, the Thuram family finances are in fine shape--and they figure to get considerably better. Thuram was 18 when a scout spotted him playing for a local team. He was signed to a contract by French champion AS Monaco.
He was 20 when he won his first honor, helping Monaco to its French Cup victory in 1992. And he was 24 when the Italians came calling. All-powerful Juventus wanted him. So did Fiorentina, Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta’s club, but it was Parma that signed him.
Since then, Thuram’s game has flourished. Newspaper praise has been showered upon him. Gazzetta dello Sport selected him as the best defender in Italy. La Republica called him “the heir to [former Italian star Franco] Baresi.”
In the balloting for 1997 FIFA world player of the year, Thuram garnered only three points, but the source of those points was significant. They came from Italy’s coach, Cesare Maldini, who voted him second in the world only to Brazil’s Ronaldo.
And now this.
Two goals in a World Cup semifinal.
“The two goals scored by Lilian are a great reward for us, but especially for him,” said Aime Jacquet, France’s coach. “He deserves it. He’s had a great World Cup.”
Capped by an extraordinary evening. Until Wednesday, despite playing 37 games for France, Thuram had never scored a goal for his country.
But in the 47th minute, only seconds after Davor Suker had given Croatia the lead with his fifth goal of the tournament, Thuram raised Stade de France’s roof by putting the teams back on level terms.
The timing of the goal was vital. Shocked that underdog Croatia had gone ahead, France, again struggling to score, might very well have hung its head and perhaps fallen further behind.
Instead, Thuram, who had been at fault on Suker’s goal, immediately lifted the gloom.
“Our reaction was splendid,” Jacquet said. “It was a very tough, very difficult game. It was not easy to move Croatia around at all [and create scoring chances].”
But Thuram managed to do so.
First he stole the ball from Zvonimir Boban, then he played a give-and-go with teammate Youri Djorkaeff, and finally he beat Croatian goalkeeper Drazen Ladic from close range.
After a bleak and scoreless first half, two goals had been scored in the first two minutes of the second half.
But there was only one more to come. It arrived, out of the Bleus, as it were, in the 70th minute.
This time, Thuram, pushing forward from his defensive position, robbed Robert Jarni of the ball, looked up, spotted an opening and fired a superb shot into the lower left corner of the Croatian net from 20 yards or more.
Four minutes later, French captain Laurent Blanc was red-carded for a foul on Slaven Bilic in what seemed a somewhat harsh decision by Spanish referee Jose Maria Garcia Aranda, but 10-man France held on for the victory.
“It was deserved,” said Croatia’s coach, Miroslav Blazevic. “But I can’t help feeling that it could have been us. We lost concentration. We scored and then, as happens so often in football, they tied it right away. And they gained strength from it.”
Croatia’s fairy-tale ride through France 98 is over. But France’s equally improbable journey continues. Its forwards have now failed to score in three games, but as long as the defense comes through, why complain?
“I’m no hero,” Thuram insisted Wednesday night. “I did my best as usual, but the team won, not just me. What counts is that we’re in the final, all 22 of us. We worked very hard for it, and we deserve it.”
Modest as ever, but the man from Guadeloupe is why France will be playing Brazil on Sunday in the final that Pele had predicted.
