SCOTT SIMON, Host: As Eleanor Beardsley reports, the country has plunged into a kind of collective rugby hysteria.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Parisian Louis Longbua(ph) says there's no way they can lose.</s>SCOTT SIMON, Host: (Through translator) Popular fervor is with us. The whole country is behind the French team, and I predict we're going to win against New Zealand in the final match. And thanks to this World Cup, rugby will become more popular than ever.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Never mind that Les Bleus did lose to dark horse Argentina, sports announcers were quick to point out that France still had a chance at the title. For weeks, the only thing that has seemed to matter in France is rugby. The French players and coaches have graced the covers of nearly every newspaper and magazine, and the sport has been analyzed and parsed ad nauseam on television talk shows.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Still, fan Laurice Martin(ph) believes rugby's qualities will eventually make it more popular than soccer.</s>SCOTT SIMON, Host: Because rugby have nice philosophy about community, courage and friendship. And it's really great. Better than soccer.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Colin Kent(ph), who traveled here with his family from South Africa, says they haven't learned much French but their rugby's okay.</s>SCOTT SIMON, Host: We know the rugby terms sufficiently well enough to communicate with them. Rugby is a universal language. Everybody knows more or less how to communicate with one another.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.</s>SCOTT SIMON, Host: This is NPR News.
The Rugby World Cup, held every four years, began Friday in Paris. It's the first time in the cup's 20-year history that it has been hosted by a non-English-speaking country.