The biggest drawing card in French sports is a Moroccan soccer player named Larbi Ben Barek. He belongs to the soccer union and thus gets $20 a week and a $16 bonus for each game the team wins. His father was a shipyard worker in Casablanca, and he learned to play soccer bare foot on a Moroccan desert. A Mohammedan, he frequently bows his head to ward Mecca after scoring a goal.
Last week Allah was good to him. Sixty thousand Parisians, the biggest sports crowd since the war, squeezed into Colombes Stadium to see Ben, the Black Pearl, and his fellow Frenchmen in red, white & blue outfits play the heavily favored English team. Ben stole the ball constantly, executed short delicate passes over English heads, did more work than any three teammates combined to beat England 2-1.
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