PARIS — The French starting 11 was worth more than $250 million. Their home crowd was stirring, waving flags, chanting “Allez Les Bleus.” Their fearsome front three alone had played more than 300 games in the English Premier League. They entered these 2024 Olympics as the men’s soccer gold medal favorite, and an early candidate to bring the Games to life.
And on Wednesday in Marseille, they did just that, beating the U.S. 3-0.
For an hour in Marseille, on opening night, a feisty American team stood up to them.
But in the 61st minute of Paris 2024’s first primetime headliner, Alexandre Lacazette struck, and the Stade Vélodrome erupted. Kids kissed the French Football Federation badges on their shirts. Thousands of blue, white and red flags twirled.
Until that moment, the game had been somewhat dormant. And the Games, more broadly, were still waiting to awake. In Paris, many locals have escaped the craziness of the Olympics. Areas around the River Seine are all but locked down to prepare for Friday’s Opening Ceremony. Tuesday and Wednesday, in some ways, felt like normal Parisian nights, sans buzz.
The best cure for all of that was France’s most popular sport, the one that led L’Equipe’s front page on Tuesday in a non-Olympic context, just three days before the official start of the Olympics.
This, of course, was not a full French soccer team. The Games are a mostly under-23 tournament. But it was still a French soccer team. And it was, by Olympic men’s soccer’s JV standards, stacked.
It came from Bayern Munich and Sevilla, RB Leipzig and Crystal Palace, in the German Bundesliga and throughout France’s Ligue 1. There were players valued at 25 million euros stuck on the bench. There were athletes all over the field whom, unlike many Olympians, the French public knows.
And the two biggest stars among them ignited the public. Lacazette, a veteran striker, one of three over-age picks, broke through the U.S. resistance.
Michael Olise, a 22-year-old creator who recently signed with Bayern, scored the second.
The American collection of intriguing youngsters and MLS veterans was no match for the star power.
For a while, they played reasonably well, and stimulated cautious optimism. There was, on paper, a clear winner; but soccer — and especially Olympic men’s soccer — isn’t played on paper. Earlier Wednesday, Morocco beat Argentina; Iraq beat Ukraine; the Dominican Republic held Egypt. Hope whispered: Could the U.S. be next?
A dull first half suggested that the answer might be yes. Even after halftime, in the 59th minute, with the score still 0-0, U.S. midfielder Djordje Mihailovic hit the crossbar.
But two minutes later, the answer was an emphatic no.
After Lacazette and Olise put the hosts in control, Loïc Badé put them out of touch and out of sight.
And the French Olympics, already riddled with controversy, received their first clean jolt of excitement.