We are on June 3, 1995. In South Africa, the Rugby World Cup, the third in history, is in full swing.
At the heart of the Rainbow Nation, she cannot escape Nelson Mandela's South Africa.
The symbol is too powerful, too beautiful, too strong.
In the end, she will triumph.
On this winter day in the southern hemisphere, we are still far from the final.
In group A, that of France and Scotland, Côte d'Ivoire is playing its last group match against Tonga.
The meeting is without stake: the two selections are already eliminated, whatever the score.
Côte d'Ivoire, for example, which is participating in its first World Cup, lost against France 54-18.
In the Olympia Park in Rustenburg, it is for the two teams to say goodbye on a good note.
The match was one-sided: Tonga won easily 29-11.
Only, an Ivorian does not see the end of the match.
His name is Max Brito.
He is 27 years old.
He shouldn't have been there.
At the very last moment, just before boarding the plane, he replaced his own brother Patrick who suffered from pubalgia in the selection.
Max, with his curly hairstyle, is a little French.
From the age of 5, he moved to Biscarrosse, in the Landes with his family.
When you live there in the 1970s and 1980s, you start walking with a rugby ball in your hands.
After 3 minutes of play...
This June 3, 1995, Max Brito who honors his third selection file after only 3 minutes of play at full speed with the in-goal.
He does not see the mass of Tongan players coming after him.
Once tackled, several of them, behemoths, throw themselves on him and crush him.
In the literal sense of the word: his spine is affected.
Max suffers a rupture of the spinal cord between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae.
All of Max Brito's #courage and #perseverance summed up in one video!
Who better than Max to transmit these values to young people through his academy 💪🏻🇨🇮🏉 #resilience #abnegation #example @WorldRugby@RugbyWorldCupFR@RugbyramaFR @LeRugbynistere @Chroniques225 pic.twitter.com/kq48PkYjuT
— Max Brito Academy (@CIVrugby) June 20, 2021
He is operated in emergency and several times in a hospital of Pretoria but it is already too late.
Doctors can't do anything.
"It's as if everything had come unplugged in my body, he explained to Le Monde in 2007. I immediately understood that I was paralyzed but I told myself that they were going to fix me, that was not so serious.
Max Brito is quadriplegic and will remain so.
“My accident could have happened in any sport.
My view of rugby is still the same,” he slipped without resentment a few years later.
Sentenced to a wheelchair, the Ivorian player had founded an academy in Côte d'Ivoire, to help young boys and girls through sport.
Charities had enabled him to finance it.
All Blacks star Jonah Lomu
MAX BRITO, EMBLEMATIC FIGURE OF THE OVAL BALL has bowed out.
The Ivorian Rugby Federation, through the voice of its president Dr Elvis Tano, extends its sincere condolences to his Biological family and to the entire Ivorian rugby family pic.twitter.com/2pNL1GfCrf
— Ivorian Rugby Federation (Official) (@FirOfficiel) December 20, 2022
His serious injury marked the World Cup since hit by other dramas.
On his return to France, the outpouring of solidarity had been immense.
The Variété Club de France had organized a support match in Biscarrosse with Platini, Giresse, Tigana and Philippe Saint-André captain of the XV of France at the time in Sanguinet (Landes).
Installed for a few years in a house adapted to his disability in the Bordeaux suburbs, Max Brito died on December 19 at the age of 54.
“The Brito family, their children Mike and Anthony, are saddened to inform you of the death of Max Brito, which occurred on Monday December 19 at 6:30 p.m.
Max was accompanied with dignity and without suffering on his last journey, ”his family announced on the website of the Biscarrosse rugby club where he had played.