Championship squad lost its luster in wake of 'race quota' furor

It is 20 years since the night France won the World Cup on home soil, and a powerful myth was born on the streets of Paris.

The shirts were "bleu, blanc et rouge" (blue, white and red) and the squad that had united to beat Brazil, 3-0, with two goals from Zinedine Zidane, was "black, blanc, beur," the latter term a colloquialism for French of North African descent.

There had been dissenting voices from far-right politicians, yet France fell in love with Zidane, whose parents were Algerian immigrants, and players born, or with roots, in the Caribbean, Senegal, Ghana, New Caledonia, Portugal, Spain, Armenia, Argentina, as well as France.