Éric Naulleau is a columnist, television host and essayist. In particular, he published
Pourquoi le football?
(Klincksieck, 2006),
When the cup overflows
(Stock, 2018) and
Ruse
(Albin Michel, 2020).
To discover
Michel Houellebecq: "A civilization which legalizes euthanasia loses all rights to respect"
FIGAROVOX. - The France team is playing its first Euro match tonight. While the competition has been postponed by a year due to the pandemic, are you impatient to find the Blues in competition? Where are you going to watch the game?
Eric NAULLEAU. -
I am very impatient because I am a fervent supporter of the Blues and I am very chauvinistic.
In addition, for people of my generation, all France-Germany have punctuated our life as a supporter.
I'm going to watch it at home because I'm way too restless for this kind of game.
I move in all directions and I am a very bad player, I boo the referee, etc.
So I don't want to impose this show on others, it will be one-on-one with myself, it's much more reasonable!
As you said, France starts the Euro with a match against Germany. What does such a meeting evoke for a supporter like you?
As soon as we talk about France-Germany we go back in his memory and we always come back to France-Germany from Seville in 1982. I had watched it with my grandmother in Marseille. She didn't follow football but she followed all my moods. At the end of the match she gave me this historic sentence, which I quote in my book
When the cup overflows
: “
I thought we had won the match
”. And that's the feeling everyone had. The worst part is that this defeat remains indelible. This memory is not erased by all the victories that followed, even though we have won competitions since then and have beaten Germany on several occasions. Even the accumulation of victories will not be enough to erase it.
The terrifying images of Platini holding Battiston's hand on the stretcher remind me of the scene of Achilles holding Patroclus's hand in the Iliad;
there is something epic, we could speak of a match told by Homer.
Eric Naulleau
Does this 1982 clash remain your worst football memory? Are you still haunted by Schumacher's assault on Battiston?
I really cried at the end of France-Germany in 1982. I spent a sleepless night because of this match and I remain haunted by this aggression. This is something unforgivable that I cannot pass over. Battiston was not far from death, not because of a heart attack like Danish player Christian Eriksen the other day, but because of a deliberate assault on the part of another player. Like many people, I think that Schumacher, the German goalkeeper, was not in his normal state that night. The terrifying images of Platini holding Battiston's hand on the stretcher remind me of the scene ofAchilles holding the hand of Patroclus in the
Iliad
;
there is something epic, we could speak of a match told by Homer.
This match shines with a black light in all our memories and that light will never go out.
I just have to close my eyes and all the images come back.
I had the honor to interview the coach at the time, Michel Hidalgo, many years later, and he told me that in the locker room all the players were crying like children.
It is an event quite apart in the history of French sport.
And what is your best memory of France-Germany?
France-Germany of the last Euro, in the semi-final in Marseille.
Because we won an important match - not friendly - and then for once all the facts of the game were in favor of France.
Before, it felt like a curse;
there was always an incident which turned in favor of Germany.
Talent and luck were on Bleus' side during this match in July 2016. The Germans played better than us that night for the time being, but you also need luck in football!
We have a very good team, very offensive, but the two preparation matches that we won 3-0 were against a Welsh team reduced to ten and against the worst team from Bulgaria that I have ever seen.
Eric Naulleau
A prognosis for tonight?
I'll risk a prognosis. I don't like when France is given a favorite, like in 1998 when the coach said he could not lose with such a team. Maybe we see each other a little too beautiful. But I prefer when you are in the position of
outsider
. Certainly we have a very good team, very offensive, but the two preparation matches that we won 3-0 were against a Welsh team reduced to ten and against the worst team from Bulgaria that I have ever seen - and I know myself well, Bulgaria is my second country! So I see France winning tonight, but with a narrower margin, let's say 2-1. It would be enough. In any case, go to the Blues! Forever and ever !