Франц улс Дэлхийн аварга шалгаруулах тэмцээний хагас шигшээд Испанид хожигдлоо

Through the afternoon of July 14, Paris was conserving its energy for what was expected to be the perfect footballing celebration.

A grand military parade had swamped the Champs-Elysees in the morning, celebrating the national holiday of Bastille Day. From 9pm local time would be the pièce de resistance: across the Atlantic in Dallas, the national football team, increasingly favourites to lift the men’s World Cup, sought to book their place in the final.

The circumstances could not have been more poetically poised for Didier Deschamps’ side to avenge a gutting defeat to Spain in the semi-final of the 2024 European Championship, sealing a third consecutive final under the outgoing head coach in the process, and further nudging Kylian Mbappe towards another World Cup Golden Boot.

Under a searing heatwave, the French capital in the afternoon had the air of millions saving their energy, waiting with impatience and optimism, for the perfect end to their national day.

And then a city watched as that dream dissolved.

“It’s a real disappointment,” one fan says sadly, outside a rapidly emptying Parisian bar. Credit is given to Spain for a superb performance, dominating Les Bleus and progressing to the final after a 2-0 win.

“They were way above us. But it’s still just like…” she pauses, trying to sum up this brutal, anticlimactic exit. “Ending this way?”

“I’m a fan of the French team from every time, but this year, it’s fantastic,” 55-year-old Ludovic tells The Athleticearlier in the afternoon. Outside the French Football Federation store in Paris, there is a steady stream of fans filing in and out to secure the shirt of the team that, at that moment, feels likely to win the World Cup.

Don’t be fooled by hindsight: Parisians had every reason to believe this would be their year.

France’s irresistible attack had laid waste to opponent after opponent — not dropping points in the group stage like Spain or England, nor needing dramatic extra-time knockout victories like Argentina. Mbappe, the World Cup’s all-time second-top goalscorer after Lionel Messi, has been neck-and-neck with the Argentine legend in an exceptional Golden Boot race. They are the tournament’s second-top scorers after Argentina, and before the clash with Spain, had conceded only twice.

“It’s a very offensive (attacking) team. It is incredible. It’s not Didier Deschamps!” Ludovic says. “It’s amazing this year.”

There was definite optimism. Where better to celebrate than Paris? The French capital, also home to Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain, is an undisputed football hub; there were 56 players born in the city at the World Cup this summer.

“It has been great,” says Marie Leroux, 34, speaking before the semi-final. “Parisians may have been less involved in this World Cup than in 2018 or 2022, but the feeling is still there — Parisians are like the most French people of all, so we are still very involved, and we are rooting for our team, and we are enjoying every moment of it.

“We have a team that is quite young and quite eager to win. So, it’s been really nice to see and to watch this team being so empowered and so motivated to play.”

“I like the talent that the team has,” says 45-year-old Karim, stopping to speak outside the FFF store hours before the game. “Also, the fact that we have different ethnicities, the fact that this is the French team, actually, it reflects exactly what our country is today — even if, unfortunately, some people don’t understand exactly what it means to be French. But to be French, it’s to love the country, to love our values, and to be all connected all together.”

Though the streets were fairly quiet in the middle of Bastille Day, with plenty driven indoors by a red heat warning, Paris’ bars and bistros were still scattered with France kits close to eight hours before kick-off. An early afternoon metro journey featured an eclectic mix of armed guards in full camouflage with guns, a soldier in full military dress complete with golden fringed epaulettes, and shirts bearing the names of Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Zinedine Zidane, and more, both in the traditional navy and the mint green of the away strip.

Some fans tell The Athletic that bars have not been as busy as past tournaments during other teams’ games — perhaps owing to the unsociable kick-off times — but the excitement around France games remains.

“If the match tonight is at nine, people will start to arrive at six or seven,” France fan Celean tells The Athletic from behind the bar at a brasserie in the 12th arrondissement, as he prepares drink garnishes for the day. Seven and a half hours before kick-off, the screens above the bar are playing a rerun of France’s opening win against Senegal. “Every four years in Paris, it’s a huge event.”

“We are really supportive for our French team. And I guess also we have a great rating, great level, great players, so it’s maybe easier to enjoy a sport where you are good as a nation.” Like many, he is already thinking of the next step after Tuesday’s game: “If we pass Spain, and it’s a final against Argentina again, we have to win it.”

Since the beginning of the quarter-finals, the government has allowed Paris’ terraces to remain open until 2am on match nights, and two areas — Le Marais and La Roquette — have been pedestrianised in the evening for France’s quarter-final and semi-final.

There has also been preparation for the less palatable side of football in the capital. More than 300 people were arrested in Paris in the aftermath of PSG’s Champions League victory in May, with violence and disorder taking hold. There was a heavy police presence on the Champs-Elysees on Tuesday evening, and some metro stations were closed in the evening. A statement from the Paris Police Prefecture in advance said that 5,000 officers from the prefecture, plus 2,000 police and gendarmes from mobile units, would be deployed across the Paris metropolitan area on Tuesday.

By one hour before kick-off, fans spill out of every bar in Le Marais. Each bar, bistro, and cafe has a TV or projector running, and French colours dominate the patchwork of people overflowing from indoor tables onto terraces, eventually standing wherever they can find room. In the bar where The Athletic watches, one man perches on a sideboard by the door for a better vantage point, as his friends pull up a backup stream on a phone in case their view of the projector is blocked.

“We are trying not to jinx anything,” Rose Margot, 31, tells The Athletic. “We know we have a good team, and there’s a good spirit and good mentality.” They are taking it one game at a time: “We don’t want to have 2022 happening again.”

“We’re totally complete, the defence, midfielder, attackers,” adds Alexandre Edwidge, 34, who compares this France side to the U.S. men’s basketball ‘dream team’ at the 1992 Olympics. “It’s not just individual players, it’s a real team. Everybody is fighting for each other.”

Spain rip up France’s script.

After Luca Digne’s failed attempt to clear, taking out Lamine Yamal rather than the ball, Mikel Oyarzabal powers in the resulting penalty and midway through the first half, France are trailing for the first time this tournament.

Unease takes a little while to set in. France are not looking their usual, inevitable selves, and there are groans and hisses of frustration after their attackers are caught offside a couple of times in quick succession before the break. Bradley Barcola’s 36th-minute effort, wide and high of the mark, sees hands clasped over mouths. By half-time, it is still the closest they have come.

(Cerys Jones/The Athletic)

Hope is by no means lost. Aman at the bar turns around and holds a finger in the air confidently: “We have Mbappe!”, he declares, clearly believing their captain can be the solution, as he so nearly was in the 2022 final.

But as the second half progresses, no hero is coming to save France. Shouts of ‘Allez!’ when the team breaks forward begin to sound less like encouragement and more like desperation. Then, in the 58th minute, comes Spain’s second. The mirror that covers the entire wall behind the projector screen captures a crowd in shock: heads in hands, open mouths, stunned expressions.

What had happened to France’s blazing attack, their flying front four, their Ballon d’Or winner Dembele, their Golden Boot contender Mbappe? How was their sturdy defence peeled apart with such ease for Pedro Porro’s goal? Worry turns into frustration and into disbelief; in the split second between Yamal’s curling finish three minutes later and the offside flag being raised, there is a wail in the crowd that sounds genuinely pained.

By the final ten minutes, those emotions dulled into a resigned disappointment. Two efforts on target from Dembele deep in stoppage time — it had taken until the 81st minute for France to force a save from Unai Simon — drew almost no reaction. It was too little, far too late. What was supposed to be a poetic victory turned into simply being outplayed.

There is no sense among customers in the rapidly emptying bar that this was a robbery or that France were unfortunate. One man wonders if the early shock of the penalty was too much for France to come back from; others lament losing out to this Spanish side once again, which has beaten them four times in a row.

“I think from what we saw during the World Cup, we were definitely favourites (for the semi-final),” says Quentin Carpier, 26. “Compared to the beginning of the World Cup, where probably Spain was the favourite team.”

“It was the worst game of France, I think, for the World Cup,” adds Thomas Tournier, 27 — and “probably the best game of Spain,” Quentin says.

“I think if we replay the game 10 times, maybe France wins eight times,” Quentin says. “But this time around, Spain was much, much better. They deserved the win.”

“I was surprised that we didn’t score any goals,” Thomas says. “I think that was the most surprising thing.” The group laments the lack of involvement from the usually talismanic Mbappe — “we didn’t see him at all”.

There is disappointment, but at their table at least, not utter despair.

“We’ve been doing semi-finals for three times in a row,” Quentin points out. “I think we ate very well with France.”

“We have the Ballon d’Or (winner), Dembele,” Thomas says. “Mbappe, Olise, it’s crazy.”

Police in Paris on Tuesday (Martin Lelievre/AFP via Getty Images)

“(The tournament) was amazing. I think with that, because Didier Deschamps is leaving, I think it was time to have a last goodbye.”

That lap of honour for Deschamps will not end with a trophy. For all of France’s firepower, when it mattered most, they fell flat.

Behind the prevailing sense of disappointment, there was disorder. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office was notified of 98 people taken into police custody overnight, of which 21 were minors, with those figures subject to change. For context, 35 adults were taken into custody the previous night, when some of the usual Bastille Day celebrations had been held early because of planned commemorations on July 14 to mark 10 years since the terrorist attack in Nice.

Significant incidents on Tuesday night included mortar fire at Place Andre Masson in the 13th arrondissement, at a fire station in the 19th arrondissement, and at Porte de Vincennes in the 20th arrondissement. At 4.35am, rubbish bins were used to form a barricade and set on fire on a street in the 18th arrondissement. Around 20 people fired mortars at the fire brigade once they arrived, but did not hit them.

It was not on the same scale as the disorder that followed May’s Champions League final, and the enormous fleet of police vans and trucks on the Champs-Elysees appeared to deter any trouble there when The Athletic passed through shortly after midnight.

Outside the bar in Le Marais, there was not violence, but rather a sense of a party cut short.

“It’s like… a real disappointment. Because we’ve been so good all (through) the competition, and it felt like starting in 2018 with the same vibe,” Rose says after full time. “It’s very sad to leave on that note.”

Tuesday was supposed to be Paris’ World Cup fairytale. Instead, it became a flat, unsatisfying final chapter.