If you have followed rugby and the Top 14 closely for several years, you may have noticed that when the Stade Toulousain forwards enter a closed scrum against their opponents, a cry escapes from the group to coordinate the push : “Azai!” A term that the players of the France team have adopted for several seasons. Since the start of the World Cup, Fabien Galthié’s men have found themselves in a circle before entering the pitch and also shout this funny word to motivate themselves (at 8’43” in the video below).
The common denominator between the French club and the French team is Cyril Baille. The pillar of the Rouge et Noir is directly at the origin of this rallying cry in club and selection. Recently invited by his former teammate Yoann Huget in the show “Huget at home”, the Palois with 44 selections since 2016 explained the genesis of this moment of complicity by referring to the title of Joe Dassin, “Whistling on the hill”.
“During a third half, we sang: ‘Waiting for him with a little bouquet of wild roses (…) Zaï zaï zaï zai’. I don’t know why, I said Azaï, Zaï, Zaï. And afterwards, for a yes, for a no, we just said: ‘Azaï’. And it stayed. It was the battle cry at the Stade (Toulousain, editor’s note),” revealed the international. “It hit him suddenly, he’s completely smoked!”, his Toulouse teammate Arthur Bonneval had fun telling the Dépêche du Midi before adding “It doesn’t have much meaning, I don’t know not sure what that means.”
Toulouse being massively represented among the Blues (10 players among the 33 called up on August 21 for the 2023 World Cup), this code was logically imported into the French team which does not only use it as a war cry. On the sidelines and in scrums, this term can also help internationals who, incidentally, can use it to tag their contributions on social networks.