Back of the fenêtre: football’s toughest spot kick is through a French window

No, the most celebrated window in the country is la lucarne d’Évry. It measures 43cm across and belongs to the bin room of an apartment building in the southern suburbs of Paris.

La lucarne d’Évry is a window to the bins, but it is also a window to glory. The story begins in 2019 with brothers Malamine “Mala” and “Gay” Sissoko filming their attempts to kick a ball through the window. It’s the kind of sacred urban art that has existed for as long as there have been cities and for as long as there have been footballs.

In French, lucarne has a double meaning: it denotes a small window or skylight, but it also refers to the top corner of a football net. This particular lucarne sits just over two metres above the pavement, while the kerb opposite is 12 metres away – a distance and height that just so happens to roughly mimic a penalty kick aimed at the top-right corner of the net, with an added curve for extra difficulty.

A clip of Gay effortlessly nailing his first attempt went viral, taking off during the lockdowns of 2021. “It was incredible,” Mala says.

Soon, scores were trying their luck on the tiny street and the craze reached as far as Messi himself who, in an ad for Adidas, blasts a ball across Paris that rebounds off the lucarne.

The crowds eventually became too much for residents. And just as those other French sites of world-historical significance, the Lascaux caves, were reproduced in their entirety to protect the integrity of the original, so a replica lucarne was constructed on a playground nearby.

Today, Mala and his friend Souli Konaté tour France annually with the lucarne, allowing hopefuls from Dijon to Marseille to compete for a place in the grand final, on the last weekend of the summer holidays.

Stands have been erected around the fake lucarne, a DJ blasts French rap, a barbecue is underway. Holding flares, the finalists enter the arena – boys, girls, grownups, even a police officer in full uniform are all here for their shot at viral fame via the world’s most satisfying Instagram account.

This day represents the joy of football as it is practised in its spiritual heartland – the banlieue. The suburbs that ring Paris are the greatest source of football talent in Europe, producing stars such as Kylian Mbappé, Thierry Henry and Sandy Baltimore. But these parts of France are rarely celebrated.

“Évry was originally known for its gangs,” Mala says. “We’ve been able to open up the neighbourhood and show you can come here without any worries.”

Thirty-nine challengers have come to Évry but as night falls, only two remain. The exquisitely named Zinédine, from Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, is a quiet 14-year-old in a backwards cap who for days has commuted from one side of Paris to the other with his “coach” (a tiny boy in a black cagoule) to practise at the window.

He faces Ismaël, 13, a local who has been training for up to five hours a day all summer at the same spot. His unusual technique of running full-bore at the ball in a hunched position has attracted a following online and in person. This is the peculiar magic of the lucarne, Mala says. “You leave your house and go to cheer on someone you don’t even know.”

The whistle blows, the final begins. Ismaël and Zinédine are each given eight shots at the window. Each boy misses all eight.

They go again. Again, they miss. We are reminded of how devilishly difficult it is to curl a ball upwards and through a tiny window, never mind multiple times, and never mind in front of a crowd. The target is tiny, the surrounding wall blank, a combination that plays tricks on the brain, explains sports vision coach Zöe Wimshurst: “Even a small misjudgement will result in failure.”

Round three.

Ismaël misses once, twice, three times. On the fourth, he charges like a bull and smacks the ball straight through the lucarne. The crowd goes wild but he hasn’t won yet – his opponent can still respond.

It is now or never for Zinédine. He strikes eight times; eight times he misses. It is over.

Fans surge to embrace their new boy-hero. They are screaming. I am screaming. Ismaël’s glasses are snatched from his face as supporters fall all over him. He is pulled to the ground, then finds his feet. He sprints with fists clenched. Here now is his beaming mother. Confetti rains from the sky. The crowd holds their phones up to capture his stunned face, his glasses hastily returned.

“With nothing, you can create strong emotions,” Mala says. “A window and a ball – it’s nothing. But with that, we give people something powerful.”

Ismaël has won an iPad, a MacBook, a trip to the Africa Cup of Nations, but you get the impression that it wasn’t about the prizes. “I won’t stop!” he tells the crowd.

And when I return to Évry the following Wednesday, there is Zinédine, hours from home, tiny coach in tow, still shooting at the lucarne. “I only had days to practise,” he says. “If I had more time, I would’ve won.”

In the end, the key to glory is dull: practice. “The story of the lucarne is a story of dedication,” Konaté tells me, as I repeatedly spray the ball wide of the target.

And if 21st-century French football is Paris Saint-Germain buying its way to success via the dispensing of Qatari funds to the tune of a small country’s GDP, then it is also this: a window in a working-class neighbourhood that was first the target for a trick shot, then a viral sensation, then a way to celebrate an essential part of the world’s most visited city that many would rather ignore.

It is a 13-year-old boy, held in the arms of his peers, friends and neighbours, his mother by his side and confetti in his hair as the banlieue cheers for his victory.

Photographs by Nathan Laine/The Observer