France, the players of the national team who come from the banlieues, who are they? The analysis after the sentences of Galtier-Corriere.it

In 2005, when two teenagers were electrocuted in the electrical box where they were hiding to escape from the police, at the center of the riots in the French suburbs was bondya small town in the Ile-de-France region, which has fewer inhabitants than the capacity of San Siro but which has seen the growth Mbappe — world champion in 2018 — e Kolo Muania striker desired by the top clubs in Europe, who, if he hadn’t found a miraculous Dibu Martinez on his way in Qatar, would have entered history through the front door like the PSG star.

France, more and more players from the suburbs

Instead, he was strongly criticized at home, where today there is talk of Galtier’s arrest (“I don’t want black or Muslim players”, he would have said when he sat on the Nice bench) and above all of the angry protests that have raged in the country since Tuesday, from ‘killing of Nahel, a 17-year-old boy shot by the police during a check in the suburbs of Paris. There where, second Arsene Wenger – legendary French coach of Arsenal – there is the best pool of talent in the world after that of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

And time proved him right. If in 1986 no French player came from
Parisian suburbs, in 1998 the historic «black-blanc-beur» team had three, Henry, Vieira and Thuram. In 2018, in the triumph in Russia, the national team, according to many, was stronger than the last 20 years he even counted eight, including Pogba, Kanté, Mendy and Matuidi as well as Areola, Kimpembe and Nzonzi. Without forgetting Mbappé, in fact. An image of the PSG star, the second most expensive purchase in football history (180 million), decorates the facade of a building overlooking the A3 motorway and the N3 state road: «Bondy, villa des possibles» – it is read – that is, the city of possibilities and not that of unemployment, delinquency or Islamic extremism as the stereotype would have it.

In Qatar Mbappé scored eight goals, three in the final. He who, the son of a Cameroonian-born football instructor and an Algerian-born handball champion, just a year before the start of the tournament he had announced his farewell to the national team: “I can’t play for people who think I’m a monkey.” Then the step back to set an example for the new generations: «We are stronger than all this». In the trident that in Lusail, against Argentina, acted behind Giroud – besides him there was also Ousmane Dembele, at the center of criticism after the triumph of 2018 for the choice to allocate the money won to the construction of a mosque in Mauritania, the mother’s country of origin. The Barcelona full-back grew up playing in the streets of Evreux (Normandy) with as a boy Upamecanthe defense leader who flies to Guinea-Bissau when he can to see his grandparents.

If Lloris, owner in Qatar, grew up in the upper middle class in Nice and Theo Hernandez in Marseille (the team President Macron is rooting for), the father of Koundé (right-back) is from the Republic of Benin (West Africa). This is why the son has expressed himself forcefully on social media in these days of disorder, such as Tchouameni: «I would like to understand why young people have been dying during police checks for years and because the trigger seems much less heavy when it comes to a certain type of individual»the outburst of the midfielder, born in Rouen, where a twenty-year-old Frenchman has died in the last few hours, having fallen from the roof of a supermarket during one of the many demonstrations.

In the final against Argentina, coach Deschamps tried everything with six changes. Who entered? Axel Disasi from Gonesse, a banlieue north of Paris; Ibrahima Konatewho played with balls made of paper in the suburbs; Camavingaborn in Angola; Youssouf FofanaMalian origins; Coman, raised in the suburbs of Paris by a family from Guadeloupe. A nice answer to those who would like a divided France.