Andy Mitten is taking the alternative route around France for Euro 2016. While most journalists will be packing press boxes, Andy will follow the fans and the buzz to bring you an alternative take on the tournament. Here is Day 6 from Marseille.
Hundreds of fans in the main stand of Marseille’s Velodrome craned their necks to see the disturbance. Police were calming a group behind the France bench as France struggled to overcome an obdurate and highly motivated Albanian side in front of a sell-out 60,000 crowd.
The problem was in a section used by players’ friends and families. There was a row of six with Koscielny printed on the back of their shirts. And the Payet family, including a four year old with a red Mohican.
"It's the family of Gignac," explained the man next to me, a friend of the Paris Saint-Germain player Matuidi. "They are not happy because he's not on the pitch. They are a very well known Gypsy family from around Marseille and he is a hero here after winning two league titles."
The 30-year-old striker, who left Marseille in a meltdown to play in Mexico last year, was already warming up. Within three minutes he was brought on to replace Olivier Giroud as France searched for a breakthrough.
More Euro 2016
• Andy Mitten: British fans in all corners of France – even Scots
• Full coverage: Visit The National's dedicated Euro 2016 microsite
• Complete guide: Previews, fixtures, predictions and more
Born in nearby Martigues, Gignac entered the pitch to a mighty roar from the vast stands that help create even more noise now they've been covered. They hoped the bearded giant would add to his seven goals from 27 France games and afforded him far more support than Anthony Martial, the Manchester United forward who attracted boos and groans when he failed to beat an opponent in the first half before Didier Deschamps substituted him.
It was Martial’s first start for France in a tournament and he deserved more backing, but France are a team trying to justify their high expectations.
Directly in front of the friends and families, Arsene Wenger and Marcel Desailly had opined pre-match on television about the need for France to start in a more assured manner than against Romania in their opening game.
Talk is easy and whatever the perception of Albania as a team, the reality was that they were fit, focussed and physically strong enough, not just to give Kingsley Coman a hard time, but to break up the play from the excellent N’Golo Kante and Dimitri Payet behind Giroud in a 4-2-3-1 formation. France had more success from the wings, when Patrice Evra – the man who can’t stop winning trophies – crossed for Giroud who headed against the post.
In the city of his nemesis Eric Cantona, France manager Deschamps brought on his big guns Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann, the two players who call Evra ‘Uncle Pat’.
Pogba, the man likely to occupy the most column inches for this close season's potential transfer even though he's told his Juventus teammates that he's staying, looked cumbersome. Griezmann was more direct and got the breakthrough after 90 minutes. Payet added an injury-time second goal five minutes later as the Albanian resistance finally broke.
As the French players celebrated in a tight huddle in front of him, the little boy with a red Mohican jumped for joy with the other members of the Payet family. There was a reason for it, for 45,000 people were singing: “If you don’t jump then you’re French.”
Marseille has long been the most atmospheric of French stadia and in the city from which the stirring French national anthem takes its name, it did not disappoint when the national team came to visit. The 20 x 20 metre screens which showed replays of Payet’s strike brought more cheers. The screens in France are big enough and clear enough to enhance the experience of watching football in the stadium. For too long, fans who are actually at the match are at a disadvantage to those watching at home who see replays.
The win was enough to send tournament favourites France into the last 16, though their side have yet to fully convince. Daily sports paper L'Equipe gave Martial only 3/10 and awarded an average of 5.1/10 across the side, yet the France team remain the subject of much enthusiasm.
Three hours before kick off on a third consecutive cloudy day in southern France, hundreds of fans had surrounded France’s team hotel two kilometres from the stadium. Watched by a dozen gun-toting police and a police helicopter above, fans held their phones in the air as the players boarded the bus for the short journey to the stadium. Security was tight, for as their eight vehicle convey moved through the crowds, behind it dozens of fans on motorbikes shadowed them, beeping their horns.
The mood was positive, with Albanians and French mixing without any problems, just as they had in Marseille’s old port which had been blighted by hooliganism before England played Russia in Marseille’s first game. Flares were let off instead of tear gas and songs were swapped.
“I think it’s fantastic that Albania is here, a dream,” said Valerio, an Albanian student who lives in Italy and goes home each August. “Most of the Albanian fans here live in Italy, England and France. They’re part of our big diaspora and this is a celebration for us, our first ever finals, but I think we will lose against France.”
With significant and even majority numbers of the population in neighbouring Kosovo and Macedonia, Albania are the standard bearers for all Albanians, yet Kosovo are now recognised by Uefa and Fifa and will play competitive internationals.
By the Velodrome, two Kosovar Albanians who now live in Germany wore smiles and traditional half an eggshell-style Qeleshe hats.
“We are the same people, we all support Albania,” explained one, “but if Albania play Kosovo, of course I will support Kosovo. I hope that some of the Kosovan people who moved to other parts of Europe during the war in 1999 will chose to play for us rather than the countries they now live in.
“And our dream is that Albania will become one country taking in Kosovo and our part of Macedonia.”
For now, their sporting, rather than political ambitions had been sated by Albania reaching this far. And they very nearly caused a fright by holding the favourites in their most atmospheric venue.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport
