And Paris goes wild
27/06/06 23:43 Filed in: France
Paris is going off.
The tooting and shouting started with Patrick Vierra's second goal and exploded when Zinedene Zidane hammered home number three, so cool, so complete, in extra time. (His Wikipedia entry was amended to include that goal within an hour).
Allez Les Bleus.
What a game. Everyone wrote off France after the dull first round, coming as it did after the train wreck of the 2002 title defence. Deep down I think most of us thought France was going out tonight. Didn't stop me putting £500,000 of unreal BBC world cup daq cash on a France win though, to double my money.
At around 9 tonight Paris went quiet. The night turned drab when Spain shot ahead on that penalty. And then ugly Frank equalized and the roars truly seemed to shake the stone apartment buildings all over town.
France looked good tonight, their passing sparkled, they were creative up front and flooded the defence. Notice too how elegant the game is when sides try to prevail on flair and skill instead of hacking the legs out from under their opponents.
The streets erupted with that second goal. The horns on buses over the road drowned out the roars after a while.
There was a tense couple of minutes as the French commentators went hysterical, unable to say much more than the time left on the clock and the Spanish charged at our goal again and again.
Then Zizou scored.
We flung open our windows. Neighbours up and down six floors all down our street on both sides flung open theirs. We put on an outrageous Edith Piaff version of La Marseillaise and blasted it out to the street. Revellers rushed onto the road. The Eiffel Tower lit up and I'm sure another searchlight beam was switched on. Someone seemed to press a fast forward button and spun the searchlight faster.
In less elegant capitals they take to the streets and fire their guns in the air. How fortunate madness in Paris only makes fans climb in their cars and drive around honking. And we live in a quieter neighbourhood. I saw a Vespa speed by with three people on board, revving like crazy and the horn on permanent blow. Firecrackers went off, teenagers sang 'allez Les Bleus'. Those tinny little French commuter cars with sunrooves slightly larger than the roof sped past honking with groups of cheering lunatics standing in the roof window waving their shirts - possibly because there hasn't been much football flag-waving yet.
And this is only for making the last eight.
The tooting and shouting started with Patrick Vierra's second goal and exploded when Zinedene Zidane hammered home number three, so cool, so complete, in extra time. (His Wikipedia entry was amended to include that goal within an hour).
Allez Les Bleus.
What a game. Everyone wrote off France after the dull first round, coming as it did after the train wreck of the 2002 title defence. Deep down I think most of us thought France was going out tonight. Didn't stop me putting £500,000 of unreal BBC world cup daq cash on a France win though, to double my money.
At around 9 tonight Paris went quiet. The night turned drab when Spain shot ahead on that penalty. And then ugly Frank equalized and the roars truly seemed to shake the stone apartment buildings all over town.
France looked good tonight, their passing sparkled, they were creative up front and flooded the defence. Notice too how elegant the game is when sides try to prevail on flair and skill instead of hacking the legs out from under their opponents.
The streets erupted with that second goal. The horns on buses over the road drowned out the roars after a while.
There was a tense couple of minutes as the French commentators went hysterical, unable to say much more than the time left on the clock and the Spanish charged at our goal again and again.
Then Zizou scored.
We flung open our windows. Neighbours up and down six floors all down our street on both sides flung open theirs. We put on an outrageous Edith Piaff version of La Marseillaise and blasted it out to the street. Revellers rushed onto the road. The Eiffel Tower lit up and I'm sure another searchlight beam was switched on. Someone seemed to press a fast forward button and spun the searchlight faster.
In less elegant capitals they take to the streets and fire their guns in the air. How fortunate madness in Paris only makes fans climb in their cars and drive around honking. And we live in a quieter neighbourhood. I saw a Vespa speed by with three people on board, revving like crazy and the horn on permanent blow. Firecrackers went off, teenagers sang 'allez Les Bleus'. Those tinny little French commuter cars with sunrooves slightly larger than the roof sped past honking with groups of cheering lunatics standing in the roof window waving their shirts - possibly because there hasn't been much football flag-waving yet.
And this is only for making the last eight.
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