Sacre Bleu (Paperback)

Matthew Spiro

ISBN 10: 1785906607 / ISBN 13: 9781785906602

Published by Biteback Publishing, London, 2021

About this Item

Paperback. Remember when Zindine Zidane steered France to their first World Cup title in 1998? Kylian Mbapp doesn't. The absurdly gifted young forward wasn't even born when the French team lifted the trophy for the first time. But it was Mbapp's pace, energy and fearlessness that helped put France back at the summit of world football in 2018, erasing years of failure, rancor and shame.Kylian Mbapp, aged just nineteen, was undoubtedly the most exciting talent to emerge from the 2018 football World Cup. Significantly, Mbapp was born in the year of his country's first World Cup triumph.From France's first World Cup victory in 1998 to their second in 2018, Les Bleus have experienced a journey that has been anything but easy. Two decades of extreme turbulence for both the national team and the country, however, has seen the birth, growth and emergence of football wunderkind Kylian Mbapp. This young, dynamic player has lifted the country's spirits; he is a precocious talent who has let his ability demonstrate a grace and certainty beyond his years, and a genius that is as lethal as it is quiet.Sports journalist and broadcaster Matthew Spiro examines the reasons behind French football's glorious highs and its impossibly depressing lows. With the uniquely compelling Mbapp as the lens through which he examines the past twenty years of French football, Sacr Bleu poses compelling questions: does this current exciting generation represent the start of an era of domination? Or will 2018 much like 1998 prove to be nothing more than a false dawn? A clever and insightful analysis of one of the most curious and complicated forces in national European football. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781785906602

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Sacre Bleu (Paperback)
• Publisher: Biteback Publishing, London
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1785906607
• ISBN 13: 9781785906602
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Remember when Zinédine Zidane lifted the World Cup in 1998? Kylian Mbappé doesn't. The forward wasn't born when the French team first became world champions. But it was Mbappé's unique talent that helped France reach the summit of world football once again in 2018, erasing years of failure, rancour and shame.

For Les Bleus, the road between these two highs was blighted by bitterly painful lows. Zidane's headbutt; a players' strike; infighting and recriminations; even sex scandals and blackmail. Mbappé witnessed it all as he honed his prodigious talent in the banlieues of Paris, and his story embodies France's journey from disaster to triumph.

In Sacré Bleu, Matthew Spiro traces the rise, fall and rise again of Les Bleus through the lens of Kylian Mbappé. Featuring a foreword by Arsène Wenger and interviews with leading figures in French football, Spiro asks what went wrong for France and what, ultimately, went right.