It could be the place. The Stade Tour Eiffel was the talk of the world during the Olympics, and it’s just as beautiful now that summer is over and fall has arrived. In Paris, people like to make a lot of noise whenever they get the chance. Maybe it’s that French folie. Or maybe it’s just that blind football, or cécifoot as they call it here, is a very exciting and surprising sport. It’s a pretty sweet Paralympic ticket, no matter what the reason is.
On Tuesday night, in front of a full house, the blind football competition’s selection rounds came to a head with two games to decide who would win Group A. The hosts, France, played Turkey. But first, the powerhouses of the sport, Brazil, played China, which is the best country in the parasports period.
Since blind football was added as an official sport at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Brazil has never lost a wheelchair football game at the Olympics. The only thing that hasn’t happened to them yet is a close call. In the last second of the game, their blind goalie Luan Gonçalves had to make a last-second save to keep the record alive.
China played as hard as they could in this game, and Ruiming Zhu was their best player. He was direct, had a good shooting sense, and could handle the physical hits that come with the game.
Brazil had stars like the amazing Jefinho, who is 34 years old but can still loft a pass 20 yards to find teammates 20 yards away, and the star striker Nonato, whose goal to win gold in Tokyo went viral for all the right reasons. But it seemed like they were saving their energy for later in the tournament, which was almost hurting them.
In blind football, every player has to wear a mask so that everyone on the field can’t see each other. Sound and touch are the two most important senses instead. The ball has bearings in it so it shakes, coaches can call out directions from different spots on the stands, and players must sound the alarm (by saying “voy”) before launching into another full-body challenge. Let’s start with touch. When you get the ball, your main goal is to keep it.
This is a sport where movement is very important, and Brazilians are very good at it. But there are different ways to hide an enemy. Like the Brazilian Ronaldo, Jefinho is a graceful runner who glides past opponents. He plays forward with Tiago; Brazil started the game with four of them. Tiago is more like Diego Costa; he’ll run with the ball and through you at the same time.
Close control and the ability to ride obstacles are two things that make blind football a fun sport to watch. It was clear that the crowd liked it. Even though fans are supposed to be quiet during games, they couldn’t help but let out a collective “ooh” when Jardiel spun his way past three Chinese players in the second half. There were also a lot of “eeks” when players were hit very hard to the ground.
The need for quiet changes the way the stadium works, and the French organizers have used this to make the environment unique. When the game is broken up, which happens a lot during the two 15-minute halves, the host will ask for noise, and the crowd is happy to give it. In the same way, the noise doesn’t stop at halftime, and the MC has to turn it down by singing the crowd a lullaby as a loud Mexican wave slowly fades into silence.
When the French team took the field, the excitement that had been building up for the Brazilian and Chinese teams was turned up a notch or five. Every time there was a break in the games, everyone sang “Allez Les Bleus,” and one kid did shout “Turkiye.” Along with the Mexican wave, there was a wave of noise as the aluminum benches were stomped on from one stand to the next.
The roof went off in a more traditional way when Frederic Villeroux scored the first goal for the home team with a driven shot. It ended up being a 2-0 win for France, which means they will go to the semi-finals with Brazil and play either Colombia or Argentina, who won the World Cup.
