actually i already said like 1 year ago that i believed that africans had an advantage over whites at penalty kicks
i'm going to say it again
a penalty kick involves almost no skill, it's not a difficult thing to do at all, virtually every professional player has the same odds of scoring a penalty
but when the penalty gets crucial, that's when more players miss their shot
they miss it because they overthink usually
so you need either experienced players who will be able to overcome the pressure, or careless players (usually young players) who don't realise the importance of their penalty and who won't overthink
blacks typically are careless
in french we always used the term "insouciant" about blacks in soccer, it could be translated as careless, or naive
as for a mostly black team winning a youth tournament, maybe you didn't read the previous posts in this thread about physical development, it's not really a surprise
and you would have to be very guilliable to think that it is a sign a french soccer resurgence
it's not the first time france wins similar competition
france has won a similar competition years ago, everyone was talking about that generation
they won the U17 world cup (the competition that nigeria have won the most :grin: maybe it's a sign of nigerian soccer resurgence also :grin: )
the best players on their roster were anthony le tallec and sinama pongolle, one black and one white
both signed with liverpool
both were huge flops and le tallec is now an OK ligue 1/ligue 2 player, and sinama pongolle was refused by a rumanian club a few years ago, he plays once in a while in a club in eastern europe now
hopefully thauvin, who has been the best player of the team and is white (he was also named best young player of the french league this year), will have a brighter future, but he already shows the symptoms of what we call the "generation 87", another talented youth team, but that brought more problems to the french national teams than good results
[video=youtube_share;59_nXqOD6kM]http://youtu.be/59_nXqOD6kM[/video]
http://youtu.be/O564qRv1Gk4
that generation beat piqué and fabregas' spain at the 2004 U17 european champs, and have been a huge disapointment after that (the most successfull players were the arabs and the whites: ménez, benzema, nasri, ben arfa, but they all brought problems in the team, and the blacks were all flops)