Va-Va-Voom

The players, the goals, the games, the scandals and the glory: the story of French football's chequered coming of age over the last 40 years. French football is an enigma: a puzzling jumble of brilliance and farce, flair and frailty, stunning success and abject failure. Its domestic league is mocked on social media as an uncompetitive 'Farmers League' and its clubs derided for underachieving in European competition. But France have reached four of the past seven men's World Cup finals, French players star week in, week out for the world's grandest clubs and the very best of French football - the roar of the Vélodrome, the glamour of the Parc des Princes, the shimmering brilliance of Zinédine Zidane, Éric Cantona and Kylian Mbappé - stands comparison with anything the sport has to offer. When it comes to scandal, meanwhile, the French are the best in the business, be it sensational match-fixing affairs, squabbles over sex tapes or meltdowns within the national squad. In this fascinating and exhaustively researched book, the first of its kind in the English language, Tom Williams brings to life French football's chequered coming of age over the last 40 years. He details how the starry-eyed romanticism that characterised the national team in the early 1980s gave way to an Italian-style pragmatism that would lead Les Bleus to the summit of the international game in the late 1990s. He delves into French football's rich history and explains the myriad ways - tactical, technical and cultural - in which France has shaped the game's evolution around the world. Featuring exclusive interviews with great figures of the French game such as Alain Giresse, Jean-Pierre Papin, Luis Fernandez, Guy Roux, Emmanuel Petit, Robert Pirès, Blaise Matuidi and Camille Abily, and with a cast of characters that also includes Michel Platini, Thierry Henry, Arsène Wenger, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Karim Benzema, Chris Waddle, Neymar Jr and Lionel Messi, it's a book no football fan will want to miss.

Tom Williams is a football writer and broadcaster who lives in London. Specialising in French and English football, he has written for The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The Athletic. He is the resident Premier League expert on the flagship French football programme Canal Football Club and a regular guest on the UK's leading football podcast, The Totally Football Show. @tomwfootball

Prologue: Les Poteaux Carrés 1. Les Bleus: One Night in Seville 2. Geste Technique: Le Coup Franc à la Platini 3. Bordeaux: Victory Amid the Vineyards 4. Marseille: Tapie's Tainted Triumph 5. Geste Technique: La Papinade 6. Les Rosbifs: Living the Dream 7. Nantes: The Goal That Came From Somewhere Else 8. Italie: Learning to Win 9. Geste Technique: La Roulette à la Zidane 10. Auxerre: One Small Village Still Resists 11. Angleterre: The Sound and the Fury 12. Arsenal: A Very English Frenchman 13. Les Bleus: Champions du Monde! 14. Geste Technique: La Spéciale Henry 15. Lyon: The Magnificent Seven 16. Les Bleus: From the Gutter to a Second Star 17. Espagne: The Ballad of ZZ and KB9 18. Le Foot Féminin: Lyon Light the Way 19. Paris Saint-Germain: All That Glitters 20. Allemagne: La Nouvelle Vague Epilogue: How Not Toulouse Acknowledgements Bibliography Index