num_pages: 352
description: Remember when Zindine Zidane lifted the World Cup in 1998? Kylian Mbapp doesnt. The gifted young forward wasnt born when the French team became world champions for the first time. But it was Mbapps unique talent that helped France to reach the summit of world football once again in 2018 erasing years of failure rancour and shame.These two crowning achievements made Les Bleus the envy of the world but the road between these two highs was blighted by bitterly painful lows. Zidanes headbutt; a players strike; infighting and recriminations; even sex scandals and blackmail. This was also a turbulent time for French society as the promise of racial harmony in 1998 gave way to rising tensions and riots.Mbapp witnessed it all honing his prodigious talent in the banlieues of Paris as the nation threatened to implode. His story embodies Frances journey from disaster to triumph; footballs hottest new property growing up in a troubled neighbourhood and inspiring a divided country on and off the pitch.In Sacr Bleu Matthew Spiro traces the rise fall and rise again of Les Bleus through the lens of Kylian Mbapp. Featuring a foreword by Arsne Wenger and interviews with leading figures in French football including Marcel Desailly Lilian Thuram Emmanuel Petit Robert Pirs and Olivier Giroud Spiro asks what went wrong for France and what ultimately went right.
language: English
title: Sacre Bleu: from Zidane to Mbappé - A football journey
publisher: Biteback Publishing