I am as certain as can be that most Americans know little about the French soccer team from Brest. In fact, most of we Yanks would find it impossible to point to Brest’s general vicinity on the French map. (It’s due west of Paris, not too far from Cherbourg, site of the Normandy hard water port that was so crucial to the Allied landings of 1944.)
Similarly, I am quite certain that few folks on this side of the Atlantic know much about Lorient, France, or about FC Lorient. (It’s on the south coast of Brittany.)
These two rather anonymous French clubs now find themselves engulfed in the big media fire currently sucking so much oxygen from the global soccer room right now.
These are the final two opponents for Paris Saint-Germain and the retiring icon David Beckham. Both matches carry their own significance as the French Ligue 1 season winds down – simultaneously bringing down the curtain once and for all on the performer who so deftly entwined athletic skill with celebrity status over three decades.
Beckham is expected to play during his team’s final home game Saturday as last-place Brest visits Parc des Princes. No, Beckham did not call the aging ground in gritty southwest Paris for very long; he arrived into PSG only in February, after all. But it was his final stop. And the man did win yet another crown at Parc des Princes.
Eight days later, on Ligue 1’s final match day, Beckham and PSG travel to Lorient, which becomes the answer to a trivia question: “Where did Beckham play his final professional match?”
The answer will be “Stade du Moustoir.” But you will surely know that by May 26. There will be plenty of cameras and tape recorders there to record the moment.
