I Am French Now

This week, I am French. I’m as French as a deposed dauphine, as French as a film plot of perfumed deceit. During the World Cup, there is just no profit in being American. Yes, I’m shamelessly bandwagoning, and deserting my nation on its 250th birthday. But my sentiments are with the country that will win this World Cup if feet have anything to do with it: France, a team that scores goals as easily as guys named Didier blow smoke from Gitanes. Is that a cliché? Well, the word cliché is French, is it not? As am I.One of the more marvelous things about the World Cup is that its 39 days afford you the time to develop unreasonable affections for teams not your own. You don’t need to know a thing about France, or tactics or formations, to fall under the spell of the team’s sorcery with a ball, or to see its potential for world dominion, or just to love how its players flip their sweat-soaked hair. Who but Les Bleus could wear the bright-red knee socks of uniformed schoolgirls and make them seem like flair? When the players rush down the field in those socks, they look like a battle painting in motion.The French make so much happen. They’ve scored 13 goals in just four games, a torrid pace for a sport in which, quite often, absolutely nothing happens. This is the nature of football, as they pronounce soccer in other countries: To profess enjoyment of a 1–0 final score is to pass some kind of fan-purity test. Which I, a Texan by blood, tend to fail. But you’ll experience no low-score-induced boredom in this World Cup if you are French. And so, for this week I am French. As French as jealousy in the rain, as French as the perfect little scarf.[Read: The passion of World Cup fans]France’s toe-tapping captain, Kylian Mbappé, has scored six of the team’s goals, including two in a 3–0 knockout of Sweden to reach the round of 16. Mbappé moves with the sweetest jolt of current in his legs you may ever see on a green field, and he now has 18 goals in 18 career World Cup games to tr