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The players, the goals, the games, the scandals and the glory: the story of French football''s chequered coming of age over the last 40 years. French football is an enigma. A puzzling jumble of brilliance and farce, flair and frailty, stunning success and abject failure. Its domestic league is mocked on social media as an uncompetitive ''Farmers League'' and its clubs derided for underachieving in European competition. But France have reached four of the past seven men''s World Cup finals, French players star week in, week out for the world''s grandest clubs and the very best of French football. When it comes to scandal, meanwhile, the French are the best in the business, be it sensational match-fixing affairs, squabbles over sex tapes or meltdowns within the national squad.In this fascinating and exhaustively researched book, the first of its kind in the English language, Tom Williams brings to life French football''s chequered coming of age over the last 40 years. He details how the starry-eyed romanticism that characterised the national team in the early 1980s gave way to an Italian-style pragmatism that would lead Les Bleus to the summit of the international game in the late 1990s. He delves into French football''s rich history and explains the myriad ways - tactical, technical and cultural - in which France has shaped the game''s evolution around the world.Featuring exclusive interviews with great figures of the French game such as Michel Platini, Alain Giresse, Jean-Pierre Papin, Emmanuel Petit, Robert Pires, Jean-Michel Aulas and Blaise Matuidi - plus modern stars like Allan Saint-Maximin, Wendie Renard and Mathys Tel - and with a cast of characters that also includes Thierry Henry, Arsene Wenger, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Karim Benzema, Chris Waddle, David Beckham, Neymar Jr and Lionel Messi, it''s a book no football fan will want to miss.>
