May 1997 – N°25 – Love for the game – ENGLISH

“The thing that fascinates me most about this sport – which I’ve never played myself – is its precision of movement. For example, what could be more perfect than a ball passed from one end of the pitch to the other, arriving squarely in the stride of a centre-forward? It’s a seemingly banal feat for a footballer, but a great mystery to me. Because of who I am and what I do, I admire the aesthetic side of football. Though at the same time I find the physical effort involved very beautiful and admirable in its force. Seeing a man running – or a woman, for that matter – is a fantastic sight. I always follow the Olympic Games closely, especially athletics: running is such a fundamental pleasure isn’t it ? In football, the act of running is beautiful, very light but also very violent.

When I’m watching television, I shout and scream – I find there’s a kind of wild passion generated around the ball. It’s almost hysterical. Wherever you go, anywhere in the world, whenever there’s a really important match on, the streets are deserted. Football seems to “light everyone’s fire”. It brings people together in a really incredible way. In a stadium, people shout together, hug one other and cry together. It’s extraordinary. It’s this amazing harmony, or discord, among people which is so staggering. I’d rather watch a match on telly, but I’ve seen a dozen or so matches in the flesh, so to speak and found it a riveting experience. You really don’t realise quite how much you shout and scream with everybody else there, and to what extent you experience the match in your very bones. You’re completely involved, and then, all of a sudden, you switch off because there’s some stoppage in the game. Then I say to myself, “the players are useless, they’re doing it all wrong…” and I’m almost ready to get out there onto the pitch and play myself, forgetting how difficult the game is. I don’t know the actual names of many players because I’ve a head like a sieve. But I do like Loko, Cantona of course, and most of all Ronaldo, whom I find absolutely gorgeous. Actually, when I come to think of it, I find all football players gorgeous.

I like football clothes. I think they usually look really good on men. The shirts, stripes, numbers, I like all that kind of thing. I’d love to re-design the kit for a top-class team. I wouldn’t do anything that different, but I’d add one single element, or take one away, maybe, just to give a different kind of look to the strip. I’d get a kick out of it, I know… A single movement is all it takes: a player shifts direction, turns, his skin glistening in the sunlight, and something is set off inside us…The World Cup in France makes me think of dreadfully hot and enervating evenings when everyone suffers, either in front of the telly or in the stadiums themselves. Everything else goes by the board, supper-time, ParisotSs – everything: the only topic of conversation is the World Cup, the matches, the high-spots, the disappointments…And it’s really good to talk and listen to other people talking about sport: the world we all live in is such a disturbing place. Everything is linked to fashion. It’s a state of mind, a living culture – and exists through politics, sport, literature, painting, museums, the sky, trees, the whole of life. Fashion is a trigger, a driving force, and sport, like everything else, is intrinsically part of it.”