Briuce Samba was trying, as best he could, to share the crowning glory of his career with his wife. The goalkeeper’s road to stardom had been a circuitous one. By Samba time he was 24, he had played only a handful of senior games. He spent the next few years toiling in the second divisions of France and England.
Now, though, it had all paid off. In March, not long before his 29th birthday, Samba was told he had been selected for France’s squad for its upcoming European Championship qualifiers. He would be sharing a changing room with Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann and the rest. He would wear the No. 1 jersey.
Naturally, it was an achievement Samba wanted to celebrate with his wife, Jessica. He called her on FaceTime to revel in the moment together, but it did not — by his own admission — really work. He was, as he put it in an interview with the French sports newspaper L’Équipe, too busy being “jumped on” by his delighted teammates at his club team, R.C. Lens.
Samba’s long-awaited call-up has not been the only thing Lens has had to celebrate in the last few months. He was probably exaggerating when he suggested this has been the “best season the club has had in 120 years” — an assertion that the 1998 team, which won the French title, might reject —…
