In Troyes, Patrick Prunier puts on a France team jersey, gets on his scooter, picks up a colleague and heads for the city center. It’s not far from 3 o’clock in the morning. “We honked like crazy, it was nonsense. » A few hours earlier, Patrick was deployed on the Champs-Élysées, with his CRS 35 uniform. « The streets were empty, and then all of a sudden, it was coming out everywhere, like rats from holeshe continues. You had the impression that people sniffed the happiness that a guy sent from the sky in a bundle. » He managed to refuse many glasses of champagne held out by supporters. “Paris was full of cameras, you have to stay super serious, while it boils inside you. » He accepts kisses from the ladies, because “the pleasure was shared”. Patrick, “soccer fanatic”followed this France-Brazil with a “two bullet radio” and a discreet earpiece. “Even though I remained vigilant and stoic, my joy transpired. I was frustrated with Sevilla 1982, and that erased everything. » Security issue, after midnight, he only had to manage “a few thugs” and a Mercedes cabriolet which saw fit to celebrate in the middle of the crowd: « Obviously, everyone shook their car, others were getting in. At the end, he tells me: “They took everything from my Merco, sir. » Bah, you surprise me, he wanted to play, he lost. »
You had the impression that people sniffed the happiness that a guy sent from the sky in a bundle.
Patrick Prunier, CRS
End of mission around 1:30 am. Return to Troyes, in the courier of the CRS 35. Decompression. His colleagues adorn themselves with the Blues jersey over the uniform. “Another wore a blond wig and was cheered on by everyone we passed on the way. » They did not attend the only real nocturnal incident in the Champs: the swerve of a Golf, driven by a 44-year-old teacher, panicked by the crowd and victim of psychiatric disorders. Hence this lunar deposition, July 13 in the morning, when she went to the police station: “Around 10:30 p.m., I dined at Fouquet’s to see Patrick Bruel, on the advice of my medium. I drank a kir, but as I took a Tegretol 200 in the morning, I was tired. I wanted to rest in my car, but around it, lots of people were making noise and looking at me. I wanted to go home. So I took my courage in both hands, I started and I drove straight. Suddenly, I was very scared, I accelerated. No matter how much I honked, people got on my windshield. I felt like I was going to suffocate. The car started smoking. An agent advised me to get out and get under a bus shelter. Afterwards, I found a small hotel run by an Asian, full. I slept on the ground. » For a balance sheet of 80 wounded including 11 serious, all the same.
Photo : Eric Renard / Icon Sport
At the same time, in a Parisian box, Éric Mazet takes a beautiful « murge »with all the employees of the CFO, the French Organizing Committee. “I remember Dominique Casagrande in this box, and that’s about all. » He regrets not having returned to Clairefontaine sooner. Normally a management trainer at the MAIF in Niort, creator of the short-lived football magazine Guadalajara, Éric has been the CFO’s media coordinator for the French team for a month and a half in Clairefontaine: “As Jacquet didn’t really care about the press, I really didn’t have much to do. » He still lives with the group, attends tactical set-ups, but not talks, matches from the bench most of the time, and is part of the table of “six guys from the Raid”.
Damn the delirium! And to think that we’re here for 22 guys on a bus…
Heard on July 13 on the Champs
On the morning of the 13th, “head in the ass”, Eric kisses the trophy, which passes from hand to hand, at breakfast. He sees the schedule for the day written in black marker on the paperboard in the hall : “12:30 p.m. – lunch at the FFF. 3 p.m. – Descent from the Champs then return to the FFF ». At the red marker, the dress code to respect : « Pantalon beige, tee-shirt Adidas, tennis Adidas ». On the bus heading to the federation, Eric talks with Manu Petit. In the double-decker bus, he will be next to Adriana Karembeu. Players and staff took over the floor. To the women and Eric at the bottom of the bus. Turning on the Champs, place de la Concorde, it is amazement: “It was crowded, wondering how we were going to get through. »
The bus makes its way with difficulty thanks to the CRS holding ropes. “The players’ wives were paralyzed”remembers Eric, who then decides to test the floor: “I tell myself that I won’t go up the Champs like that every day and I settle in discreetly. I see people perched everywhere, on trees, street signs, all ages, all colors. Djorkaeff, Dugarry, Candela are like crazy, Zidane super quiet, as usual. » Thuram will even admit having received a lettuce from a fan concerned about his passion for salad. Others chain legendary quotations printed black on white in the Freed the next day: “Damn the delirium! And to think that we are here for 22 guys on a bus” ; “For the first time in my life, I wanted to wave the flag. I bought it for 30 francs in front of the Monoprix. But I don’t see what will bring it out to me anytime soon.” ; “I took him for an idiot, Jacquet, he will become a legend. » A small group sings « Brazil, Brazil ! »the crowd responds “To Roissy, to Roissy”. Faced with all these supporters, the bus will never reach the Arc de Triomphe and will branch off into Avenue George V. Back at the FFF, Eric gets off the bus and will not continue to the Lido with the Blues. « The World Cup ends there for me. I return to Niort to find the family. And on the 15th, I’m back at the office, at MAIF. » The very example of an enchanted parenthesis.
Dele Alli : Human after all
Article originally published in 2018 in So Foot magazine, number 156.
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