Croatia vs. “France”—A Soccer World Cup Final Even Ann Coulter Can Love
07/14/2018
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With apologies to the great Ann Coulter, the 2018 World Cup championship July 13 final is one soccer game that Americans should be watching. For anyone aware of the National Question, the stunning matchup between tiny Croatia and France offers a compelling microcosm of nationalism versus globalism.

Coulter has famously argued that soccer is a sport America should be united in hating. She ended an impressive assault on “the beautiful game” with this final paragraph denouncing the 2014 World Cup:

If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.

franceCoulter is right—soccer, which John Derbyshire once called “The Longest, Awfullest Game” , is indeed terrible. But at least the shocking consequences of mass Third World immigration for the historic nations of the West, which has also made our own United States unrecognizable in cities across the country, will be on clear on July 15: France—let’s make that “France”— will field a team with only six white Frenchmen out of 23 players:

Indeed, 17 players on France’s 23-man roster at this year’s Cup are the sons of first-generation immigrants. Other successful European squads are also stacked with talent from sons of immigrants or recent migrants themselves, notably Switzerland and Belgium.

That famous French squad that thrust the FIFA trophy into the air in Paris in 1998 was noted for its diversity. The French tricolors, it was said triumphantly at the time went from white, blue and red to “black, blanc, et beur” (black, white, and a term for Arabs of North African descent).

[What France and Belgium’s World Cup success says about European immigration, Washington Post, by Afshin Molavi, July 6, 2018]

It’s difficult to call “France’s” 2018 World Cup team French in any sense.  It is openly celebrated as “Africa’s last team” in the contest, playing exclusively African music on the road to the Final: 

Officially, Africa's involvement in the World Cup ended in Samara on June 28, when Senegal were eliminated by Colombia. But in the eyes of football fans from across the continent, there is still one African team left in the tournament. And they face Croatia in the final on Sunday.

There are at least 15 players with African roots in the France squad, and their lineages stem from all over Africa.

Samuel Umtiti was born in Cameroon, Steve Mandanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Paul Pogba's parents are from Guinea, N'Golo Kante's from Mali. Blaise Matuidi's parents are from Angola and came to France via DR Congo. Kylian Mbappe has an Algerian mother and a Cameroonian father. Presnel Kimpembe and Steven Nzonzi's fathers are Congolese. Corentin Tolisso's dad is from Togo. The list goes on.

They are associations the players wear proudly. After France's scintillating 4-3 victory over Argentina in the last 16, Kimpembe posted a video on Instagram that showed the team's players—among them Pogba, Benjamin Mendy and Antoine Griezmann—dancing to the song "Seka" by Congolese artist DJ Marechal on the plane taking them back to their base camp in Istra. One Twitter user commented that it could have been filmed on a bus destined for the Malian capital Bamako.

African music has been playing in the background throughout France's World Cup journey, even extending to the stadiums. The song played each time France score a goal is "Magic in the Air" by Ivorian group Magic System, which was chosen as the team's official fan song prior to the tournament by the French Football Federation.

[Why France Are Carrying Africa's Hopes in the World Cup Final, by Tom Wilson, Bleacher Report, July 13, 2018]

Seeing the “French” team take the pitch, you’d be hard pressed to argue against President Trump’s 2017 comment to CPAC that “Paris is no longer Paris”:

“Take a look at what’s happened in France. I have a friend, he’s a very, very substantial guy, he loves the city of lights. He loves Paris. Hadn’t seen him in a while,” Trump told the audience. “And I said, ‘Jim, let me ask you a question, how’s Paris doing?’ ‘Paris? I don’t go there anymore. Paris is no longer Paris.”

[‘Paris is no longer Paris’ – Trump takes aim at French capital, SFGate.com, February 24, 2017]

Trump similarly, while a candidate for the GOP nomination in 2016, said that “France was no longer France” after the terror attack in Nice [Donald Trump: France is no longer France: Presidential nominee says rise in terror attacks has changed France, and the US is going the same way., by Paul Dallison, Politico, July 27, 2016]

When you see the “French” team, you see exactly what the unelected Eurocrat elite in Brussels intend to implement across not just all of Western Europe, but Eastern Europe as well.

National identity, social capital and culture erased permanently. In its place, the Third Worldization of Europe, an easily manipulated population, and the total loss of our ancestral homelands to globalization.

Enter Croatia. It beat an “English” team in the semi-finals (12 of the 23 were white Britons, the rest non-white reminders Enoch Powell was right). [World Cup losers England score a resonant victory for unity, diversity, decency by David Horovitz, Times of Israel,  July 12, 2018] It now stands on the verge of perhaps the greatest upset victory in the history of sports—a tiny white nation standing athwart the seemingly inexorable force of globalizing yelling… no more!

Croatia has been untouched by the mass immigration that the elite of Western Europe and the U.S. unleashed upon their people. Immigration has absolutely nothing to do with the Croatian team. Nationalism and pride in one’s fatherland are all the 23 players of Croatia represent—and a dramatic rebound from a bitter war for independence:

whitecroatia“For Croatian football and for Croatia as a country, this is history being written,” Zlatko Dalic, the team’s coach, said Wednesday after a 2-1 semifinal victory over England. “We have our heart, we have our pride, we have our players.”

Team captain Luka Modric, put it more succinctly before the game. “England have suffered less than us.”

Few things have come easy for the players on the Croatian team, 17 of whom lived through at least part of the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia, the most brutal conflict in Europe since World War II and one that left more than 140,000 dead and displaced millions more.

When Modric was 6, his grandfather, after whom he was named, was shot and killed while tending his livestock. The family moved to the relative safety of a nearby town where Modric learned to play soccer in streets and parks that were frequently targeted by artillery.

Defender Vedran Ćorluka spent the first six years of his life in the village of Modran, an area that suffered heavily during the Bosnian war. Dejan Lovren and Mario Mandzukic, who scored the goal in extra time that beat England, fled to Germany, where they lived out the war as refugees.

[Soccer has been part of Croatia's identity even before there was a Croatia, Los Angeles Times, by Kevin Baxter, July 12, 2018]

On its improbable run to the World Cup Final, Croatia defeated Russia—another team dubbed “too white” to compete in the soccer tournament:

As host of the 2018 World Cup, Russia has the privilege of playing in the first match of the month-long competition. And as Team Russia takes the field on Thursday, soccer fans will see a national team that looks almost nothing like tournament favorites Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, or Belgium. 

Russia’s team is almost entirely made up of white players who make their living playing for the country’s domestic league. The World Cup teams expected to get close to the final game are not only ethnically diverse, but are stocked with players who ply their trade outside their home countries, in the world’s most watched, most-competitive and highest-paying leagues: the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Germany’s Bundesliga. 

History and economics go a long way toward explaining why the Sbornaya, as Russians call their team, stands apart in these ways from most major footballing nations, but there’s also the well-deserved reputation of Russian football and its fans for racism and xenophobia, not to mention the nation’s ultra-nationalist political environment. 

[Russia’s National Team Is Too Russian, Which Is One Reason It Will Bomb out of the World Cup, Mother Jones, by Clint Hendler, June 14, 2018]

But in fact Russia did not “bomb out”—it reached the quarter finals.  And Croatia is just as white as Russia team maligned by Mother Jones, and yet now it stands on the edge of victory.

In a clearly-coordinated campaign, the international media has published countless stories about the glory of immigration and diversity on the “French”, “English,” and “Belgian” teams. No-one will note the nationalism fueling Croatia’s rise. There’s even been a ludicrous attempt to argue that Croatia too is an advertisement for immigration:

While Croatia’s squad is largely white, it too has drawn heavily on those with links to other countries. Players who grew up abroad but have Croatian roots have long been part of the Croatia team, with two of them, Ivan Rakitic and Mateo Kovacic, being raised in Switzerland and Austria respectively. Rakitic, alongside Luka Modric, has formed perhaps the strongest midfield duo in the tournament.

[Why the World Cup is a great advertisement for immigration, USA Today, Martin Rogers, July 10, 2018]

Croatian nationalism may seem an inconvenient anachronism to our rulers today. But in the World Cup matchup between Croatia and “France” on Sunday, tens of millions of white people worldwide will see for themselves, along with President Trump, that “France is no longer France.”

And with this admission, we are one step closer to the world-shaking moment when the National Question is answered for good.

See, Queen Ann, it’s okay to pay attention— just this once!

Paul Kersey[Email him] is the author of the blog SBPDL, and has published the books SBPDL Year One, Hollywood in Blackface and Escape From Detroit, Opiate of America: College Football in Black and White and Second City Confidential: The Black Experience in Chicagoland. His latest book is The Tragic City: Birmingham 1963-2013.

 

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