>>149270000Fun fact : before WW2, football in France was more of a "rich man's sport" while the popular english sport was rugby. Pretty much an inverse of the british situation where rugby was more associated with elite schools and football was played by regular folks.
Football became more of a popular sport after the war because of italian and portuguese workers, then polish workers moving into France. Before that, it still had a bit of an image of a rich sport the way tennis would have today.
The really popular sport though was cycling. There were races all over the country, every other newspaper or important business was setting up its own events and even now if you ask older people in France who are some of the athletes they consider to be "legends", Poulidor will be one of the name that you'll hear the most.
Football's popularity was very much fueled by the poor first-generation migrants coming into France. You can trace the migratory phenomenons with one generation of lag by looking at where the parents of the NT players were born.