NOBODY CAN PLAY TRULY inspired football in an empty arena. It was the roaring mass of the crowd that brought out the greatness of the teams and their stars. There were twenty-two players on the field, but the concentration of the stands was on two: the baron and Jean-Paul.
The struggle became a duel not between France and Germany, but between the veteran and the youngster. Often when the German had blocked a sudden thrust or caught a stinging kick, he would tease Varin by holding out the ball, then dodging a few steps, bouncing it a few times in the penalty box as he ran forward. Then would come a sly roll-out to a forward at one side or that great zooming kick, high, far back into French territory.
Thousands of local fans who had no tickets, but had come to the stadium hoping to pick up one at the last minute, stood patiently outside in the sunshine, willing merely to listen to the noise from within.
They could tell with exactitude whenever Jean-Paul was off and running by that surge of sound from the French stands, that rising roar: “Allez, Jean-Paul! Allez! Allez! Allez!”
It would reach a frenzied pitch, a crescendo, as the boy neared the German goal, then subside into a vast, collective groan as the baron made another acrobatic catch, another desperate save, and the German stands cheered.
The two defenses were equally effective, but the French side had a diversity that their opponents lacked. They kept the home crowd up by the fluidity of their play. On the attack they pressed forward constantly, always assaulting the enemy goal. On the defense they contracted smoothly. The amazing accuracy of their passing was such that each man seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. They could send and receive a ground pass at full speed. Suddenly, without warning, would come that quick cross to a teammate, perhaps with his back to the German goal, who instantly whirled and shot.
But if the French were the more thrustful, tearing holes in the German defense at thirty yards out, still they could not score. That big panther in the goal, leaping from side to side, blocked everything.
He deftly deflected a stray shot over the crossbar, coolly punched another ball around the corner post, then dived to prevent a score on a low kick from Bonnet, the French winger. The Germans were technically superb. They were the epitome of controlled power. Yet over all was the baron, completely in command, vigilant, watching each man, calling crisply to his teammates as the play fluctuated up and down. He was the soul of the German side, the great tactician, the Rommel of football.
A truly magnificent player, even the French spectators agreed. But for him France would have scored and scored again as the forwards pressed the attack. In the sense that they were in German territory most of the time, the French were winning. They held the upper hand. But what good is it to dominate a game if you cannot score?
With a top-notch goalkeeper, even second-rate teams find it easy to defend—if, that is, they do nothing else. But the tactics of the Germans were by no means solely defensive. Strong, intelligent, they waited until the precise moment to strike—then struck hard. Their team had no offensive genius like Varin. But they had perfect ball control with short, accurate passes, unspectacular but impossible to intercept. It was football that demanded much of a man: patience, skill, and fitness. Especially fitness.
On the home team was that great centre forward of France, that boy with the white bandage around his head. Centre forward is one of the most important positions on a team. Rarely is it given to a youngster. But Jean-Paul Varin had an old football head on his young shoulders. He could move either way, pass with either foot. His control was so perfect that he was always able to do the unexpected: kick to the goal the instant an opportunity presented itself or pass to an unmarked teammate. Moreover, he had a peculiar trick of moving the ball up to an adversary, showing it to him, and then slipping away, almost magically, with the balloon still at his feet. There was an electric quality about his moves that communicated to his teammates and the crowd alike.
He was indeed “guele d’ange,” angel face, as the French called him.
There was a studied elegance, a kind of joy in his bearing on the field. Despite the injury he had suffered, he kept smiling. On the white bandage was a spreading reddish stain. He had a French fineness of feature that was seductive. Tall, frank, outrageously spoiled by nature, he was the boy that everyone wanted for a brother, that every woman would have liked for a husband or a son.
His character, too, made itself felt. You were attracted to him despite yourself. If you had never seen him play, you came to the field determined not to enthuse over Varin. In five minutes you were on your feet, shouting like everyone else: “Allez, Jean-Paul! Allez! Allez!”
Even the Germans applauded his skills, his moves on the field so marvelously thought out in advance.
“Ein fussballwunderkind,” they said to each other.
“Ja, ja, ein fussballwunderkind... ja, ja....”
The interchanging forward line of France, whirling, twisting, shifting, moving in a pattern to the exact spot on the field, kept passing the ball from one teammate to another. Sepp Obermeyer, who had been so completely fooled in the opening sequences of the game, now stuck to Varin unerringly.
As one German in the stands remarked to a friend, “Sepp stays with that Frenchman so closely he’ll end up in their dressing room at half time.”
Varin’s function was to set up the goal, to create the opening for others as well as score himself. Sometimes he was the decoy forward, quite as important as the man with the ball. Then next time, with everyone expecting a pass, he would turn suddenly and strike himself. Often the Germans knew exactly what he was going to do—only they didn’t know when.
On the field the referee blew his whistle for a German tripping and gave France a free kick from thirty yards out. His manner was firm and decisive. You could see he was a no-nonsense kind of referee.
The ball was beyond the penalty box. A wall of huge Germans stood before Garnier, the French captain, as he went back to kick. He tried hard to curve the ball around them and did so, but Borkowski, the big blond Silesian, knocked it away and the baron had no trouble reaching and holding it. That penalty could have been costly, he thought, as he rolled the balloon out to Otto Schoen, his winger at the left.
Play continued, chiefly about the German defensive zone. Suddenly the referee’s whistle sounded again. It was half time. The game came to a halt. Neither side had scored. The players, shoulders hunched with fatigue and strain, bodies consumed by the fierce intensity of the struggle, slumped off to their dressing rooms.
The first forty-five minutes of the match had seemed to last forever. In another way, it seemed that only a few minutes ago they had all filed out onto the field, waiting for play to begin.