How France became world football’s dominant power
Nation benefits from a street football scene, embrace of immigrants and topflight opportunities for young players
France
Tom Allnutt
Ousmane Dembélé felt the Paraguayan boot between his feet and smiled. As the chosen protector of the spot while Kylian Mbappé prepared to take a penalty for France last weekend, Dembélé might have felt aggrieved that Gustavo Velázquez, Paraguay’s gnarly right back, had snuck in behind him and given the spot a good quarrying with his right foot.
Instead, Dembélé could not have looked less bothered. He grinned at Velázquez and handed the ball to Mbappé, who duly drove the penalty in to send France into the World Cup quarter-finals. When the two players later watched a clip of Velázquez’s attempted sabotage, they laughed.
“They’ve seen a lot worse,” said an official close to the team. Or as Dembélé said to Mbappé: “Do they not know where we’ve come from?”
Mbappé is from Bondy in the suburbs of northeastern Paris, a banlieue town in Seine-Saint-Denis, which is the poorest area in France and so synonymous with crime that it is often referred to simply by its department number, “le 93”, like shorthand for a place with a troubled history. Dembélé grew up in Vernon in Normandy but still visits family back in Waly Diantang, a village in Mauritania in West Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world, which his mother, Fatimata, left for France three decades ago in search of a better life.
Mbappé and Dembélé have 13 goals between them at this World Cup — Mbappé eight, Dembélé five — as they spearhead a France that many have long believed is the outstanding team of the tournament. Whatever happens, this has been another chapter in what can now be considered a golden age of French football. France are in sight of a third World Cup win in eight tournaments, during a period that has also included winning the Euros in 2000 and finishing runners-up on home soil in 2016.
As an era, it rivals even the most storied national teams, given France have reached four of the past seven World Cup finals and hope to make it five out of eight this week. For comparison, the Pelé-powered Brazil side made four finals and won three, while the great
West Germany side that followed reached five finals over a longer period and won two.
The French va-va-boom certainly has a wider sociological context because the country has benefited hugely from its diversity, with the United Nations estimating in 2024 that 9.2 million immigrants live in France, representing 14 per cent of the population, the second highest in Europe. In the French squad, 20 players have at least one parent with non- French heritage and the majority would have been eligible to play for at least one other country. Family members have: Brice Samba’s father played for DR Congo and Jules Koundé’s uncle for Togo. Désiré Doué’s brother, Guéla, has played for the Ivory Coast at this World Cup.
The advantage for a French squad with links to the likes of Senegal, Cameroon, Algeria, Congo, Martinique, Mali, Italy and England (Michael Olise was born in London) is that it boasts a more eclectic mix of skills, drawn from a wider variety of physiology and football experience. It means that shared limitations are reduced, and French coaches say that the main attribute gained has been creativity.
“Different backgrounds and cultures bring different football influences, mentalities and styles of play,” says Frédéric Pereira, president of Paris 13 Atletico, formerly FC Gobelins, one of the most respected clubs in Paris.
“That contributes to the development of exceptional players.”
But France are not the only country enjoying the benefits of an immigrants’ World Cup, given 23.6 per cent of players overall are playing for a country different to the one of their birth, up from 9.6 per cent in 2006. In fact, 12 countries other than France have used some of the 99 French-born players at this tournament, with France directly facing 16 of them, including ten representing Senegal and six Morocco. Spain’s Aymeric Laporte, born in Agen, will likely be the 17th against Spain this Tuesday.
The French connection with immigrants is not new. Arsène Wenger pointed out last week that France’s first ever Ballon d’Or winner, Raymond Kopa, had Polish roots, while their second, Michel Platini, had grandparents who came from Italy. “If you look at the history of French football, it is very closely linked to immigration,” Wenger said.
Dotted around Paris, particularly across the outer arrondissements, lie around 200 five-a-side pitches, which may not look like the talent factories of a dominant football nation. This is a different world to the manicured training grounds of clubs in the Premier League and unrecognisable even from the most respected academies in France. Owned by the councils and paid for by the French football federation, these City Stades are just small courts of concrete or, at best, wornout astroturf. They are encircled by metal fences but the gate is always open. They are free, available and, as a result, very rarely empty.
These cage-pitches, without rules, referees or adults, form part of the daily life in the poorest communities of France’s major football cities, from Marseille to Lyon to Toulouse. But the City Stades are the nerve centre of talent development in the Paris region, which has become the beating heart of French success. Players born around Paris alone account for 57 representatives in this competition.
“ The prevalence of street football culture in France appears to be a game-changer
The prevalence of street football culture in France, and particularly Paris, at a time when most major football nations are relying more on highly conditioned academy systems appears to be a game-changer. “It’s not unusual, it’s unique,” says Damien Comolli, the French former Juventus and Tottenham Hotspur sporting director, who also scouted Thierry Henry for Arsenal. “Among the big football countries, France is the only place where kids play football all day long in the streets. Think about how the big cities are set up in France, with some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Europe. No social mix. Nothing to do. When I see Mbappé or Dembélé or Doué, I don’t see African heritage players, I see street players.”
Mbappé, Dembélé, Doué, Olise, Bradley Barcola, Rayan Cherki — what the fabulous French attackers have in common is those street-football instincts, developed in games of 3v3 or 5v5, against players of all ages, build and ability. They have speed and skill but also vision, spontaneity, an ability to navigate tight spaces and to make good decisions quickly.
Mbappé’s penalty against Paraguay was the perfect example, won after a dance by Doué, who tamed an awkward ball before skipping past four defenders and drawing the foul. “I needed someone they couldn’t stop,” France coach Didier Deschamps said.
From the City Stades to the French academies, the best young players are signed up to the regional Centres de Formation, the most prestigious of which is Clairefontaine in the Rambouillet forest, which houses the gems of the Île-de-France region. A two-year programme is designed to prepare young teenagers for football at professional clubs but also life as a professional player.
The real differentiators, though, seem to be the two phases either side of the excellent academy training.
The magic formula is about the raw talent, drawn from a rich diversity of backgrounds and honed by a culture of street football, which is then given the chance to mature earlier and more regularly in Ligue 1 than in any other major league.
Mbappé was 16 when he first played for Monaco and 18 when he first won the French league. Doué made his Ligue 1 debut for Stade Rennais at 17, at the start of a debut season which included 34 senior appearances.
Incredibly, more minutes were played by native players aged 18 and under in Ligue 1 (11,432) last season than in the Premier League, Bundesliga, and Serie A (11,287) combined.
It means the flaws of Ligue 1, competitively and financially, have become a source of strength for the France national team. “They go through the academies and then they get opportunities to play in a very physical league, where they have to think quickly if they want to survive,” Comolli says. That’s what gives France the head start over the rest of the world. That’s the golden ticket.”
Additional reporting: Oliver Povey
