Far Afield

Adapted from Far Afield by S.L. Price . Copyright � 2007 by S.L. Price . Reprinted by permission of The Lyons Press. All rights reserved.

In the fall of 2003, I began a dream assignment for Sports Illustrated : Live anywhere in Europe , cover the continent in the run-up to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens , take the pulse of sports overseas in the age of terror. My family and I moved to a small town in the south of France and, despite my best efforts, began to sink into the culture. At first, I had tried to be the typical American overseas, listening to the baseball playoffs at 3 a.m. via the Internet. But we lived now not 30 minutes from the gamy and gorgeous city of Marseille, where every scarf, sticker and T-shirt proclaimed the region's fierce loyalty to France 's greatest and most notorious soccer team, Olympique de Marseille; and almost overnight I found myself losing interest in the American game. I became like everyone around me, consumed with one question: When, exactly, was OM management going to wise up and fire the team's hapless coach?

In November, the rich and overstocked galacticos of Real Madrid came in to play OM at their historic pitch, the Stade Velodrome. It was an important game for many reasons, but none mattered more than the fact that Marseille native Zinedine Zidane would be coming home for the first time to play OM -- the team he'd grown up in those same stands adoring, the team that had passed on him when he was young.

So Zidane is coming home conflicted, the favorite son angling now to deal his city a fatal blow. When I hop off the subway at the spiffy Stade Velodrome the night of the game, the psychic stakes have only grown higher: In the afternoon, Marseille learned both that Valencia had gotten the America's Cup and that Zidane -- already twice named World Footballer of the Year -- has been named a finalist again. The 58,600 seats are filled, with each roiling end punctuated by the banners of the team's infamous fan clubs -- Dodgers, Fanatics, MTP, Kaotic Group, Winners, Yankees. A Confederate flag flaps incongruously in the frigid sea air. At 8:08 p.m., with AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" screeching through the sound system, the scent of marijuana drifting by, an animal roar rising out of the mass, Real Madrid comes trotting on field for warmups. Zidane lopes out, spotlights imbuing his balding head with a dim glow. He boots around a ball with Raul, then jogs off. The crowd whistles in the European salute of disgust, and Zidane and the rest of Real disappear into a tunnel.

Then the game begins, and everything Real Madrid means goes on display. Here are the cashbox boys, wielding a $350 million budget that dwarfs any other team's, sending out its roster of megastars with studied casualness. Real doesn't play so much as pay off, and all goes as it should: Of course Beckham opens the scoring 21 minutes in with a looping free kick, bent just like the movie says, to put OM in a 1-0 hole. Of course Real is dominating. Then Zidane collapses at midfield, left leg writhing. Stretcher-bearers scamper out, but Zidane finally hops up, limps over to the side, and lays down like a tired hound. A sourness, an understanding that maybe all the buildup has been a con, overtakes the Stade. For 40 minutes, it looks like OM will go down without a whimper ...

Then BANG!, that quickly, the place is transformed. OM's Ahmed Mido heads the ball with a crack into goal, and now smoke bombs explode, banners shake, people scream. We all feel the goal as much as see it: Yes, I'm on my feet too, there before I know it, yanked up by roar of the crowd, its surging pride, the sniff of an upset. Throats yell, "All-ez! All-ez! All-ez!" and what has been a lethargic contest accelerates, the crowd and the play pulling each other along faster, faster. Beckham gets slapped with a yellow card, OM sends another header just over the crossbar, Ronaldo goes just wide with a header of his own. All around me, faces stretch into grins, mouths twisted by shouts and laughing. No one cares what they look like or who sees them; they've all gotten what sports can give: the chance to lose themselves. Back and forth, the two end zones of fans chant at each other, 40,000 voices booming across the field:

"Aux Armes!" (To Fight!), yells one.

"Nous Sommes Les Marseille!" (We are Marseilles !), responds the other.

"Nous Allons Gagner!" (We will win!)

"Aux Arms! Aux Arms! Aux Arms!" (Fight! Fight! Fight!)