It’s not a uniform, just a cap, but it already identifies the lucky ones. This slightly outdated headdress has been blooming all weekend all over France. On the side of Lormont in Gironde on Fijian heads, in Lyon on those of the famous All Blacks, in Le Touquet on English skulls… And in Rueil, Saturday, capturing the hair of Antoine Dupont, Grégory Alldritt, Charles Ollivon and all their teammates from a XV of France a few days before their entry into the running, Friday evening at the Stade de France, in this World Cup which they approach as favorites.
The presentation of the “caps” has become one of the highlights of the welcoming ceremonies for the various teams involved in the World Cup. “It’s a great honor, a lot of pride, said third line Paul Boudehent on Saturday, acclaimed like his partners by more than ten thousand supporters in the Bois-Préau park in Rueil-Malmaison, a stone’s throw from the camp of base of the Blues. I was talking about it not long ago with my parents, I didn’t expect so much a few weeks ago. I don’t know if I would have the chance to experience others. »
This cap is the modern version of an ancestral tradition. It has always been given to each selected for the World Cup since the creation of the event in 1987. Simply, the gesture has long been less formal, often exercised in the privacy of hotels, in small groups. Since 2015 and the World Cup in England in particular, the headdresses have been put on with great fanfare, in the middle of the public. It is also on the other side of the Channel that the symbol was born, from the first international matches in the 19th century. The federations of football, rugby, and all collective sports had as a rule to reward each player before he puts on the jersey of their country.
The oval ball has maintained this practice, even if the cap is now reserved for the World Cup. And he extended it beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. Throughout his tenure, which began at the end of 2019, coach Fabien Galthié did not stop using the term “caper” when referring to the choice of his players. “A cape is not given, it comes to seek itself, he constantly asserts. We don’t play with that. »
Saturday, the Blues of Antoine Dupont had time to measure the scope of this very special piece of fabric, before joining their base camp in the evening. “The strength of this group is that after a ceremonial day like this, we will get back into competition mode, slipped the general manager of the XV of France Raphaël Ibanez. It’s one of our qualities, being able to switch and turn into a war machine when the match comes.
