World Cup win gives France new set of heroes, needed boost

The welcome was grand, the emotion visceral as France's victorious World Cup team rolled down Paris' Champs-Elysees Avenue in an open-top bus Monday while tens of thousands of people cheered with unrestrained pride and jets streamed the national colours — blue, white, red — overhead.

The crowd that waited for hours to greet the soccer team, under a hot sun and amid celebratory smoke bombs that choked the air, got its moment hours after the team returned from Russia to hoist the gold trophy on French soil for the second time in 20 years.

The national team's 4-2 win over Croatia on Sunday gave France a new set of heroes, many of whom represent the changing face of a diverse, multicultural country with which not all French citizens have yet reckoned.

The red carpet welcome for the World Cup winners continued at the Elysee Palace, where President Emmanuel Macron threw an informal garden party that had 1,000 children and 300 athletes from local soccer clubs as guests.

Many of the invited clubs are based in the poor neighbourhoods French that produced the players who made up France's youthful, diverse World Cup team, including 19-year-old breakout star Kylian Mbappe. Members of the club he grew up with in suburban Bondy attended the party.

"Merci!" Macron, the youngest person to become France's president, told the guests. "This team is beautiful because it was united."

Addressing the team, Macron offered advice.

"Don't change," he said, adding, "Never forget where you come from."

Team captain and goalie Hugo Lloris, brandishing the trophy from soccer's eminent tournament, and coach Didier Deschamps led the team onto the red carpet at the Elysee courtyard. With Republican Guards standing motionless in full dress uniforms, the squad quickly broke into party mode for the official photos.

The fun continued in the garden with chants led by midfielder Paul Pogba and off-the-cuff songs.

The victory came at a time when many French were in need of good news, and the magic provided a sense that a grand coming together might at least paper over political, economic and social fissures for a while.

"Eternal Happiness" read Monday's headline in French sports daily L'Equipe, summing up the mood of many who hoped the euphoria would last.

Before the reception, the Champs-Elysees became the epicenter of national pride for the third day in a row, following the post-World Cup celebrations that brought hundreds of thousands to the fame avenue Sunday and a Bastille Day parade of French military might Saturday.

The team appeared elated, too, during its victory lap on the bus Monday. Players threw scarves into the crowd and recorded the action.

Several Paris Metro stations were temporarily adjusting their names to honour the team and its members, the transport authority tweeted. The Champs-Elysees Clemenceau has become the Deschamps-Elysees Clemenceau to honour coach Didier Deschamps.

The Etoile station is, for now, "On a 2 Etoiles" (We have 2 stars), to denote France's second World Cup victory. The Victor Hugo station is now Victor Hugo Lloris, after France's standout goalie and team captain.

"We are linked for life now with this Cup," defender Raphael Varane told BFM-TV on Monday before departing from Moscow, evoking the theme of unity that French partiers have consistently evoked.

Macron exulted on the field in Moscow and in the locker room, hugging players as they received their medals even as the skies poured rain. The president clearly hoped the World Cup glow would rub off on him, raising him up in the eyes of a nation where his economic reforms have drawn fierce protests and labour strikes.

He meets Tuesday with business representatives and an eye on mobilizing them in needy neighbourhoods of France.

It was the players, though, who captured the French imagination.

Sports Minister Laura Flessel, who met the team at the airport, told Europe-1 radio that the World Cup victory allows France's youth — like those in the poor suburbs where many of the players grew up — "to dare to believe in their dreams."

The patriotic fervour sparked by the World Cup did not prevent the vandalism and violence that sometimes accompany public celebrations in France. Broken shop windows and signs of looting lined a section of the Champs-Elysees. Authorities detained 90 people for questioning in the Paris region and some 290 around France.

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An earlier version of this story was corrected to show the official name of a Metro station being renamed temporarily is Etoile, not Etoiles.

source yahoo.com

Southgate, England ready to face music of soccer history

MOSCOW

Gareth Southgate and England are ready to face the music.

No other soccer nation dwells on decades of failure quite like the English. Southgate was so demoralized by his penalty kick failure against Germany in the 1996 European Championship semifinals, he avoided The Lightning Seeds ”Three Lions,” the team’s official song when it hosted the tournament.

Now the song, with its repeated chorus of ”football’s coming home,” is a staple again, No. 5 this week on YouTube UK’s top music videos chart with more than 2 million views on the day of England’s last match.

”`Football’s coming home’ is a song I couldn’t even listen to for 20 years, frankly, so for me it has a slightly different feel,” Southgate said Tuesday on the eve of England’s World Cup semifinal match against Croatia. ”But it’s nice to hear people enjoying it again.”

When the song first was released, the chorus proclaimed ”Three lions on a shirt/Jules Rimet still gleaming/Thirty years of hurt/never stopped me dreaming.” A 1998 update changed the third verse to ”no more years of hurt.”

England hasn’t played in the semifinals of a major tournament since Southgate’s penalty kick at Wembley was saved by Andreas Koepke 22 years ago, and Andrea Moeller put the next kick over David Seaman and under the crossbar. The most-cherished national team memory remains the 1966 World Cup final victory at Wembley over West Germany, a demarcation point in the island’s history as much as 1066 (the Norman invasion) and 1707 (union with Scotland).

”It was a long time ago, so not too many of us can remember that far back,” said midfielder Jordan Henderson, born in 1990.

The winner Wednesday advances to Sunday’s final against France. Southgate wants to break stereotypes, and not just on the field.

”I’m rare breed. I’m an Englishman that doesn’t drink tea,” he said.

England and Croatia are teams that innovated over time but have generally been immutable during the World Cup, sticking to virtually identical starting lineups except for group phase finales, after advancement was secure. In the other four games, Croatia’s only variable to its 4-2-3-1 formation was whether to start captain Luka Modric in a deep midfield role and Andrej Kramaric more advanced, or to move up Modric and start Marcelo Brozovic.

Right back Sime Vrsaljko limped off during the quarterfinal win over host Russia and goalkeeper Danijel Subasic had a hamstring injury during extra time but remained in the match. When asked about injuries, Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic responded through a translator with inconclusive palaver about Vrsaljko having ”this niggle.”

England has gone with a 3-5-2, and the only change was to start Ruben Loftus-Cheek in midfield after Dele Alli injured a thigh.

”The biggest thing that the gaffer’s brought since he’s come in, which he’s brought right from day one, was identity, and about the way that we wanted to create a team,” Henderson said. ”You can see that togetherness on the pitch now, and I think that’s valuable in crucial moments in big games, and yeah, I can definitely say this is most together England team that I’ve been involved in, and so I think that makes a massive difference and you get your rewards for that.”

With an average age of 26, England is one of the youngest teams at the World Cup.

”We were never quite sure how far this team could go,” Southgate said. ”The age of the players, the improvement in the players, the hunger in the players has been apparent for everybody to see. We’re really proud in the style that we’ve played, with the intelligence that we’ve played, and that we’ve performed under pressure and dealt with difficult situations in games where we’ve had to wait until the last minute to score, we’ve had to recover from conceding in last minute, we’ve been through extra time, penalties.”

Croatia made its only semifinal appearance in 1998, losing 2-1 to host France. Defender Dejan Lovren is a teammate of Henderson’s on Champions League finalist Liverpool, and Lovren bristled when asked about a 4-1 loss at Tottenham last October when England striker Harry Kane scored twice.

”It’s completely irrelevant,” he said through a translator. ”Why didn’t you ask me how I played well against him? You are just nitpicking my poor performances.”

How Did Bruce Lee Die? New Book Has a Sad, Strange Explanation

What was Bruce Lee’s cause of death? Matthew Polly, the author of the excellent new biography “Bruce Lee: A Life,” has a strange, sad, and entirely plausible explanation.

Polly digs deep into how Lee died in our new “Shoot This Now” podcast, 

The cause of Bruce Lee’s death is one of the most confounding questions in his spectacular life: How did a 32-year-old man who exercised constantly and was known for toned physique suddenly die? Misinformation abounds.

Google “How did Bruce Lee die” and you’ll receive, thanks to Quora, the most common answer: cerebral edema. A cerebral edema is an excess accumulation of fluid in the brain that can cause seizures, coma, and even respiratory arrest.

Lee collapsed on May 10, 1973, while recording dialogue for his film, “Enter the Dragon.” He was taken to a Hong Kong hospital where doctors diagnosed him with cerebral edema. So it is probably not surprising that when Lee died suddenly on July 20, 1973, another Hong Kong hospital reported that cerebral edema was the cause of death.

A Hong Kong inquest later found Lee’s cause of death to be “death by misadventure,” a type of accidental death that involves a degree of bad luck. That finding included the possibility that one factor in Lee’s death was his decision to take a drug called Equagesic, which contained aspirin and a tranquilizer.

But Polly argues persuasively on our podcast that Lee’s real cause of death may have been overheating. And his overheating may have been intensified by a decision to have his “sweat glands removed from his armpits because he felt his dripping pits looked bad onscreen,” as Polly writes in his book. “Without these sweat glands, his body would have been less able to dissipate heat.”

Yes: It is possible to have the sweat glands of the armpits removed. But Polly argues it was a dangerous decision for someone who exercised as intensely as Lee did.

Overheating is better understood today than it was in 1973. But it is “the third-most-common killer of athletes and rises to first during the hottest months of summer,” Polly explains. Lee died on the hottest day of July 1973.

Polly’s book carefully unpacks the rumors and misinformation around Lee — which were fed by a decision to remove his body from the home of his mistress, Betty Ting Pei, to avoid upsetting his family.

If Lee did die, in part, because of the decision to remove the sweat glands from his armpits, it would be a tragic turn in his lifelong quest to excel. Lee worked hard for his entire life to overcome every obstacle, first to impress his father and later to provide for his wife, Linda, and their two children. He was relentlessly competitive, always seeking an edge, and always willing to sacrifice to succeed.

He traveled to Hong Kong to make films after Hollywood couldn’t overcome its racism to make him a leading man in an American film. He became the greatest martial arts star in the world, against unbelievable odds.

His death cut short a courageous struggle for success. And the mystery around it has contributed to the fascination with his too-short life.

source: yahoo.com