Massy is not Paris.
Not for the vacationers, who keep central looking for golden-hour boulevards, bakeries and Breton stripes.
Not for the locals both, who distance themselves from the town’s pretensions by describing themselves as Massicois, somewhat than Parisians.
However, in actuality, they’re too near be something however.
A 40-minute practice trip from the sights, Massy is among the banlieues that ring the French capital.
A satellite tv for pc limbo city, it’s a part of Paris’ sprawl, however omitted of the promote made world wide.
What’s for sure in these suburbs, although, is soccer’s dominance.
As you stroll up from the station, by Massy’s gauntlet of squat condo blocks, you move kids carrying kits from world wide – Arsenal, Juventus and Actual Madrid. The letters P, S and G are spray-painted on to spare surfaces.
It isn’t shocking. Paris is maybe the best metropolis on the planet in forming soccer expertise.
However Paris shouldn’t be totally pre-occupied by soccer.
One rugby membership specifically nonetheless holds out.
Massy, fashioned in 1971, are within the third tier, attracting crowds of round 2,500 to a compact stadium. Their influence, although, is outsized.
Within the clubhouse, small, framed photographs line the partitions. The topic of every wears a blue France shirt. Bastareaud stares down from one.
Cameron Woki – a star of the 2022 Grand Slam staff – is 2 spots alongside. Sekou Macalou, a part of the squad on the 2023 Rugby World Cup, is there. Yacouba Camara, who performed at Japan 2019, is just too. Jordan Joseph, named as the perfect younger participant on the planet in 2018 and now a fully-fledged worldwide, is one other.
It’s a rare wellspring of expertise. Not least for its location.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, the French nationwide staff was made up virtually totally of gamers south of the Loire River, drawing on the game’s small-town heartlands.
By the Nineteen Nineties, that watershed was much less distinct.
Jimmy Marlu, a product of Massy, was one of many first Parisians to interrupt into the France staff. Serge Betsen, additionally born and introduced up within the capital, was of the identical period., exterior
For the reason that flip of the century, although, the trickle has grown to a torrent, with round 50 Parisian gamers, the overwhelming majority with household backgrounds outdoors mainland France, having represented France’s males’s staff.
France haven’t picked a staff with no participant educated at Massy for the previous 5 years.
Greater than 200 gamers have come from the membership to characterize their nation at age-grade, sevens and senior degree, each males’s and girls’s.
Leo Barre is among the newest.
The 22-year-old full-back, who scored a attempt in final yr’s 33-31 win over England, comes from the rich Versailles space, however would make the 30-minute journey to Massy as a 12-year-old, drawn by its profitable youth scheme and values.
“It was unbelievable to reach on the membership like this and see the variety of worldwide gamers which have come by it,” he says. “But in addition to see the environment within the dressing room. There was no distinction – no matter color, origin, or social class, we have been all the identical.
“We have been all enjoying for a similar shirt, for Massy.”
