POGBA HELPING FRANCE TO BELIEVE ONCE AGAIN

How a player from Paris suburbs brings fresh hope to a divided nation trying to come to terms with effects of terrorism

THE evening of November 13 was one of sheer excitement for those who grew up with Paul Pogba. Sambou Tati, who coached Pogba at his first club, US Roissy-en-Brie, when the player was 13, had tickets and was taking his eight-year-old son, Tylel, to watch the friendly with Germany at the Stade de France eight months ago.

The occasion itself was exciting but the chance to see Pogba, one of their own from Roissy-en-Brie and a family friend, made it extra special. Tylel was desperate to see if they could speak to him at the end of the game where the players boarded their coaches.

It was during the game that Tati began to receive messages about terrorist attacks. Like many, he went to leave the stadium but was turned back by police. They ended up waiting on the pitch as police secured the area, Tylel still confused as to why he could not go to see Paul after France had won 2-0.

When they were eventually allowed to go after midnight, seven people bundled into a small car and drove through a chaotic and tragic Paris night, back to the suburb of Roissy-en-Brie, as the news filtered through of 130 dead.

Last week Maud Griezmann, sister of Euro 2016’s new star Antoine, spoke movingly of how she pretended to be dead as she gripped her boyfriend’s hand as the terrorists executed victims in the Bataclan Theatre during the Eagles of Death Metal concert. Another member of the France team that night, Lassana Diarra, who missed Euro 2016 due to injury, lost his cousin, Asta Diakite, in the attacks.

So, when France return to Stade de France tonight for an emotional Euro 2016 final against Portugal, it will be impossible to eradicate the memories of that terrible night when the stadium was targeted and intended as the first point of terrorism.

Tati will not be there. He will watch the game with friends in Roissy-enBrie. He had a ticket for the opening game against Romania but gave it away. ‘I don’t want to go back to Stade de France at the moment.’ he said. ‘Perhaps one day. I can go to other grounds but not there. It was horrible.’

Yet in Roissy-en-Brie and throughout France there will be celebrations aplenty if their national team win tonight. The French have always had an ambivalent relationship with the Les Blues. Originally there was the Michel Platini-inspired triumph of Euro 84 but even after that victory, the public never obsessed with their team like most other European nations.

It took the glorious triumph of 1998 when France won the World Cup in Paris for a nation to fall in love with its footballers.

The apparent symbolism of a multi-racial team, captained by today’s manager Didier Deschamps but inspired by Zinedine Zidane, the Marseille-born son of Algerian immigrants, and others such as Christian Karembeu, born in New Caledonia, and Lilian Thuram, born in Guadeloupe, was hard to ignore.

Modern France seemed to be at peace with itself. ‘It was an important moment where we all had unity,’ said Tati.

Of course, life is never that simple, not even in football terms. The ’98 team went on to win Euro 2000 but flopped at the 2002 World Cup, going out in the group stages. They reached the 2006 World Cup final but in 2010, when Nicolas Anelka was sent home for telling the coach to ‘go f*** himself’ and Patrice Evra led a players’ strike, the love between nation and players kindled on that romantic Paris summer night in 1998 had died. Divorce proceedings between seemed imminent.

‘What happened in 2010 left its mark on French football,’ said Bacary Sagna, the France and Manchester City rightback, who was part of that squad.

‘Clearly we made mistakes and we brought French football down and we left a negative image around the world. We had to do a great deal of work to come back towards the people, to get the public with us.

‘We really want to put a smile on the face of French people and show a different image of the French national team. We can’t erase what went on in the past but we want to look forward.’

Sporting triumphs are always illusory and often over-stated. Just as Britain tried to draw political conclusions about the kind of nation it was from staging the 2012 Olympics, which have proved ultimately superficial, so the goal of achieving a post-racial French society requires more than merely winning a football tournament.

The National Front have steadily gained votes since they were supposedly put in their place in 1998. And in the aftermath of November’s terrorist attacks, with five of the perpetrators French citizens, it was hard not to draw a contrast with the optimism of 1998.

But symbolism is also important in national life. Hugo Lloris, captain of the French team and Tottenham goalkeeper, expressed it eloquently yesterday.

‘I think the French people really needed to escape via this competition,’ he said.

‘Sport has this strength to bring people together, to unite people and you can see that very clearly. We can see that because we are experiencing it.’ Outside Pogba’s former home, on the Renardiere housing estate in Roissy-enBrie, his childhood friends were sitting on a grassy bank enjoying some shade from the sun on Friday afternoon.This is a Parisian suburb but not the kind you associate with the riots of recent years. A burnt-out car stands near by but it otherwise has the feel of peaceful community and the town itself is a green, leafy place with plenty of open spaces, some 20 miles east of Paris.

POGBA lived on the 12th floor of the 15-storey tower block here with his mother, Yeo, his mother, and elder twin brothers, Mathias and Florentin. His father, Fassou Antoine. Lived nearby. The family had come to France from Guinea but Pogba was born here US Roissy-en-Brive, the football club which he joined at eight yeara old, is short jog away.

Those relaxing here are Pogba's generation, all in their early 20s like him. They all grew up with him football playing with him in the small playground with basketball hoops and football goals which lies next to the RERcommuter line in to Paris.

‘Football can helps people forget the difficulties,’ said Kevek Emroe, 24, one of Pogba’s contemporaries. ZahaouZakaria, 25, who played with Pogba, and Po speaks of watching the ’98 tr the age of nine and the inspiration it provided for France. ‘But this team can’t compare with that one,’ said Emre ‘They were legends.’

All are proud of this French team, though, and in particular of Pogba, 23. ‘The whole neighbourhood is proud of Paul,’ said Zakaria, who said it was necessary to go to see the mural of Pogba, which is being painted on the

playground wall, on the edge of the estate. Yet even in the run-up to this tournament, it seemed unlikely this team would unite themselves, let alone the nation. When Karim Benzema was kicked out for allegedly playing a part in blackmailing team-mate Mathieu Valbuena over a sex tape — Benzema has been questioned by police, is waiting to learn if he will be charged but denies the offence — the divisions did not confine themselves to the team.

Eric Cantona suggested that the exclusion of a player of north African origins had racial elements, a charge the French Federation and Deschamps naturally furiously denied. The questioning of Benzema by police had come a week before the terrorist attacks. On every level, it seemed France was divided. But tonight, it will not feel like that at all. ‘Of course we have had some very tough times this year both with that tragic events but also with events off the field in the squad,’ said Lloris. ‘But we’re even prouder to be on the pitch, to feel the entire French population behind us, to feel this happiness shared between the players and the French people. It gives us greater strength.’ Yet while the team may not yet have matched the greats of 1998, they do still re-emphasise the basic point the World Cup winners made.

‘The national team is the image of France and ultimately it represents the France of today,’ said Tati, who has Senegalese and Congolese roots.

‘If you go to any club, for the most part the players are the same mix as the France team. It’s a France with players of several different origins.

‘This is important: whether you’re black, white, Chinese, Arab, you grew up in France, your nationality is French and you play for the national team, for your country.’

The excitement for Les Blues is growing again; the bond with the fans has been repaired. As for the team, Pogba expressed it best, while joking with Evra, the man accused of representing the worst attitudes of the national team in 2010, yet integral to this squad.

‘Our team is mature,’ said Pogba after the semi-final win over Germany. ‘This is an extraordinary result. I am super happy. We are a family, we are welded together, you can see that on the pitch.’

It seemed implausible eight months ago but the team do, indeed, seem as one; the connection with the fans is restored. As for the nation being united, that might be too much to expect.

Perhaps they can at least aim to feel united tonight.