World Cup Runneth Over for Underdog Senegal’s Fans

The French, as usual, were prepared to be gracious in victory, but a funny thing happened on the way to magnanimity. The reigning World Cup soccer champion France on Friday confidently opened the 2002 tournament against lightly regarded Senegal, and shocked the soccer world by losing 1 to 0.

The startling victory by a former colony over its old master in the first game of the 2002 World Cup added still more suspense to what was already a highly anticipated tournament, the first ever played in Asia.

From Algeria to South Africa, Africans celebrated the win by the Senegalese team, nicknamed the Lions of Teranga. Many described it as a victory against the vestiges of colonialism.

“The Lions roared today,” said William Kirima, a soccer fan in Nairobi. “This is a huge win for African football and all African people.”

Even in France, the big upset set off celebrations. In Marseille, immigrant Senegalese danced in the streets, singing, banging drums and standing on cars.

Fans worldwide gathered at whatever odd hour the Seoul location dictated--4:30 a.m. in California--with little expectation that the first match would be much more than an appetizer for the monthlong feast of soccer to come.

France was a pre-tournament favorite to repeat its 1998 triumph and Senegal, a former French colony, was, in the diplomatic language of one BBC commentator, “unfancied” to do much other than show up. This was Senegal’s first time qualifying for the World Cup and it was, some forecasters said, only the third-best team from Africa. Just being there was supposed to be the little West African nation’s reward.

Their response to the matchup underscored differing moods in the two nations: The Senegalese president declared a national holiday as the French complained about the inconvenience of having to open their World Cup defense at the same time as the French Open tennis tournament.

Schools were closed across Senegal to allow teachers and students to watch the match. In Dakar, the capital, many shops were dark as businesses closed or staggered their opening hours to allow employees to do the same. Hundreds of Senegalese, most of whom don’t own televisions, gathered at the national theater to watch.

At a French restaurant in Beverly Hills, one of a few area bars and restaurants that opened to accommodate die-hard fans, wine importer Bruno Laclotte heaped paternal compliments on Senegal, but was calculating how much a French victory would boost sales.

“The Senegalese are very physical and have a lot of ambition, but they don’t have the technique that the French have,” Laclotte said.

Technique or not, what the Senegal team had after the game was one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history. The win set off celebrations across the globe.

Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade, who was almost alone in predicting the victory, said his players had already fulfilled their mission. “After beating France, the world champions, the Lions can come back home,” he said. “All the same, I want to ask them to stay and defend” the honor of Africa.

Before the game was half through, children ran outside to celebrate the Senegal goal. And after that goal held up for the victory, thousands of fans poured into the streets, dancing, waving flags and chanting, “We’re going to eat chicken tonight!”--a reference to the French team’s cockerel emblem.

Some fans said the win marked the greatest day not merely in Senegalese sport, but in Senegalese history--greater even than Independence Day in 1960, when the country shed three centuries of French rule.

Still, it’s hard to tell these days exactly what it means to be any particular nationality.

Over the last decade, world athletics have become a ferocious free market, with teams scouring the globe for athletes and the best athletes moving to wherever the most money lures them. Some major league baseball teams, for example, have had players from more than half a dozen countries. In soccer, professional teams in Europe routinely employ players from Africa and South America.

More than half the members of the French team are of African or West Indian origin. A third of the French team, including its best player, are of Algerian descent. One is Senegalese. There also is a Basque, an Armenian and an Arab.

Many of the Senegalese team players have lived in France for years. Almost all them play on teams in the top league in France, while most of the members of the French national team--the French, or the Algerians, or the French Algerians, or whatever they ought to be called--play professional soccer elsewhere in Europe.

The French--that is, the French who weren’t cheering for Senegal--were philosophical in defeat.

Francois Tomasini, a middle school teacher in the southwestern French town of Hendaye, said the French team was not done for the tournament. He and many other French fans noted that the team was missing its best player, injured midfielder Zinedine Zidane, who is expected to return to play before the tournament ends.

The lead-up to the World Cup has been unrelenting in France. The premier sports newspaper, L’Equipe, had two sections, with both covers featuring a World Cup theme. Tennis coverage started on Page 4 of the second section.

And the NBA playoffs? They landed on Page 13 of the second section.

“To me, it’s not a disaster today,” said journalist Yannick Cochennec of Tennis Magazine/France. “It’s going to calm down the whole country. It was too much the last month, even last night the players’ wives were on TV. It’s like we are a South American country and Zidane is a god .... OK, we won the World Cup. We won the European Championships. Suddenly, it’s too much. There’s the World Cup and nothing else.”

The international drama played out in far-flung spots across Southern California. In Costa Mesa, two British expatriates met at an Irish pub to watch the game. One of them, Paul Holden, said he was cheering more against France than for Senegal.

“If England were playing, we’d be drinking [here] as well, doing the whole deal, but it’s only France,” Holden said. “We hate France almost as much as the Germans and Argentina.”

The drama was a little more to the point in the Brasserie Des Artistes restaurant in Beverly Hills, where owner George Etesse opened his doors at 4 a.m. Friday. Etesse’s regular clientele is largely expatriate French and Francophiles, but one of his waiters, Zackiry Mohamed, is from Senegal and invited a few friends for the match.

“If Senegal wins,” Etesse proclaimed with a good-natured laugh, “he’s fired.”

By 4 a.m., nearly 50 fans were crowded into the cafe on Wilshire Boulevard. The signs of an upset were everywhere. French fan Clovis Chambaret, 26, was already looking past the Senegalese to the next opponent.

“The French hate the Germans because Germany beat them five times in a row in the World Cup,” Chambaret said. “Secretly, [French fans] want to play against Germany.”

The Senegalese fans stewed.

“We’re more vicious than the French think,” Mohamed the waiter said under his breath. “We have a lot to prove, especially against France.”

French fans got up early for the match; Senegalese fans like Mustafa Ndiaye didn’t sleep.

A former college player, Ndiaye, 26, was jittery with excitement.

“We’ve been waiting so long for this,” he said. “Soccer is the only way we can beat [the French], the only way we can express ourselves.”

Ndiaye found other ways once the game began, shouting his encouragement with every touch of the ball by Senegalese feet.

He was joined not only by other Senegalese fans, but by Tunisians and Algerians wearing Senegalese team jerseys.

When midfielder Papa-Bouba Diop scored in the 30th minute, the African fans went wild.

At halftime, Clement Bacque, who showed up for the game in plaid flannel pajama bottoms topped by a French jersey, said watching his team try to recover from the 1-0 deficit in the second half would be “45 minutes of agony.”

His prediction proved correct, as the Senegalese repelled a series of French attacks on their goal.

As time expired, French fans were diplomatic.

“It’s going to be fine,” said Fred Thiphaine, 34. “When you’re on top, everyone wants to beat you and they have nothing to lose.”

Alex Dupuis, looking stunned, complimented the Senegalese.

“They played great defense,” he said. “This was a big slap in the face.”

The salt in the unexpected wound to Dupuis’ national pride was the $20 he lost to his Senegalese girlfriend, Awa Diop.

“He didn’t expect them to play so well together,” Diop said.

A resigned Clement Bacque tugged at the leg of his pajama bottoms as the sun rose over Wilshire.

“I’m going back to bed,” he said.

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Times staff writers Grahame L. Jones, Lisa Dillman, Dave McKibben, Jennifer Mena, Scott Martelle and Terry McDermott contributed to this report. Jones reported from Seoul, Dillman from Paris and Maharaj from Nairobi.