THE FRENCH STOOD and chanted. Now a shrill, derogatory whistling could be heard, too, mixed with boos. A brick arched up from the crowd and landed on the field. Another entangled itself in the nets of the goal, then another and another. Immediately armed policemen with riot guns appeared. They fanned out, facing the stands and scanning them from the edge of the field. They were tough cops in boots and helmets, ready to toss out anyone who disturbed play.
No more bricks were hurled, but the chanting and whistling continued. “Le Boucher! Le Boucher!”
Nothing more fell onto the field, but the shouting and whistling continued.
Players frequently know nothing and hear nothing the moment play begins. Often the baron had to be told which opponents had scored a goal on him. But this time it was hard for him not to recognize the name they were calling him. Every Frenchman and Frenchwoman in the stadium or watching on TV was sure that the baron had injured Varin on purpose.
“Ah, quel sale type, quel salot!”
But then, everyone agreed, what would you expect? Those Germans just have to win at any cost, at any cost.
The long legs of the boy stretched out on the ground stirred ever so slightly, the first sign of returning consciousness. The baron walked over to see how he was, but the French players who had formed a circle around Jean-Paul, refused to step aside for him. Now the boy sat up, his head in his hands. Yves Robin, the French trainer, and Garnier bent over him, slopping water on his face. They helped him up and he walked a few steps, plainly dizzy. There was a cut on the right side of his forehead. Blood ran down his cheek.
The crowd noticed it immediately. “Aaaahhh...” they cried. But what would you expect from the Butcher of Nogent-Plage?
The trainer gave the boy something from a bottle to drink and wound a bandage around his head. Jean-Paul raised his hands in protest, but the trainer, paying no attention, taped the bandage securely.
The baron leaned against a goalpost. He had in his time survived many on-field collisions, but this one had shaken him up, too. His body ached. He bent over, panting, then straightened up. The French stands jeered. However, he went to Varin and patted his shoulder. Jean-Paul nodded. He was all right.
His fans shrieked for a penalty kick. Even the captain of the French team stood protesting. But the referee shook his head. Varin jogged up and down to cheers from the stands. Finally he indicated that he was ready.
The referee placed the ball near midfield, and the game got under way again. For a while the play was negative, nervous, and uncertain. Because of the injury to their star the French momentarily lost their poise. The Germans at once seized their chance. Quick, direct, with passes short and sure, their game well coordinated and neat, they broke dangerously into French territory. Schroeder, their centre forward, shook loose, and after a series of passes had a great opportunity to the left of the goal, and young Helmut Herberger, the punch of the German team, crossed over, reached the ball, and drove it with all the force of his instep toward the goalie. Bosquier, the Frenchman, made a magnificent save at point-blank range. The ball, however, spun from his grasp.
Big Schwartz, following up, kicked it again. Again Bosquier saved, diving at the ball just in time. The French stands were ecstatic.
Two great teams, two superb goalies.
As play progressed, Varin slowly regained his top form, and as he did the French side came to life, now attacking without mercy, using long, articulated passes. So perfect was their position play that a teammate was invariably reaching the ball on those passes at the exact moment. Their surge downfield was a joy to watch.
Even the Germans were impressed. So were the sportscasters. High on top of the stands a wooden platform had been constructed over supporting uprights—a precarious perch for cameramen and commentators. The little Italian television man from Milan who had been so rough with the baron at the press conference was speaking what seemed a thousand words a minute into his microphone. As Varin, taking and passing the balloon, bore down on the German goal, he screamed, “Ah, il furia francese....”
The French attack, especially that of Varin and the wingbacks, was built on speed and more speed and tinged with that Frenchiness of the French, containing all their national characteristics—dash, drive, cerebration. Whereas the Germans felt that ball control was vital at all times, the French took risks and brought them off. When the Germans obtained the balloon, they kept it until it could safely be passed to a teammate. Their passes were short, accurate. Yet, watching, one felt that there was power in their game, that they were a team that could explode at any time.
Of the two, France was seductive, artful; Germany stronger and more brutal. Never again did Obermeyer allow Varin to get loose. He kept continually at the heels of the French star, for he also was fast. And although France always seemed to be attacking, forever banging away at the German goal, the Germans’ defense was so tight that after that first sortie it looked as if the home team was never going to score. The crowd watched, cheered, groaned as two national temperaments, two styles of play, unfolded below them. Millions all over Europe sat transfixed by their TV sets.
His youthful, dynamic energy fully regained, Varin dominated the field, perhaps even more noticeably because of the white bandage around his head, a kind of helmet of Navarre. If you don’t learn football by the time you are ten years old, you never will. Jean-Paul Varin, the French centre forward, had learned it truly and well as a boy from the Père Clement, once an international competitor for France. He had learned it also by listening to and playing with the Herr Oberst or, as he called him, the Feldwebel Hans, now calmly awaiting his onslaught in the German goal.