The Story of France National Team in The World Cup Part 2

We continue our journey with the 1998 World Cup hosted by France and culminated in it.

The Semi-Final Match

In the semi-final match, which was played on July 8, 1998, at Saint-Denis Stadium, where France faced Croatia under the watchful eye of more than 76,000.

Croatia, which reached the World Cup for the first time in its history after the secession of Yugoslavia, had knocked out Germany in the quarterfinals with a 3-0 victory.

The friends of Davor Šuker, the Real Madrid star at the time, dreamed of eliminating France and reaching the final

The first sign of this dream began to come true when Davor Šuker himself scored the first goal for the Croatian team in the first minute of the second half, and it was only one minute until French defender Lilian Thuram squandered the Croatian dreams, scoring the equalizer, so France controlled the match and scored the second goal by Thuram himself

Unfortunately for the Croatian national team, defender Lilian Thuram played for France in 142 international matches from 1994 to 2008 and only scored these two goals.

Thus, France qualifies for the final and begins a new dream with the first crown after eliminating the dreams of the Croatians

The Dream Final Match

At nine o'clock European time, on July 12, 1998, the Stade de France hosted the final match, which was a dream for the French people, as the stadium was filled with more than 80,000 fans, led by the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac.

In order for the French dream to come true, it was necessary to beat a Brazilian team that many classified as the best team in history, along with the Brazil team in 1982.

The visiting Brazilian team started the match with a squad consisting of:

Claudio Taffarel

Roberto Carlos, Aldyer, Bayano, Cafu

Cesar Sampaio, Captain Dunga, Leonardo (former sporting director of Paris Saint-Germain)

Bebeto and the phenomenon Ronaldo

As for the France squad, it was as follows:

Fabian Barthez

Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desaillier, Frank LeBeouf, and Bicente Lizarazu

Captain Didier Deschamps, Christian Karembeu, Emmanuel Petit, Zinedine Zidane, Yuri Dejorkaev

Stefan Guevasch

The French dream began to come true, as French-Algerian origin, Zinedine Zidane opened the scoring for France with a header after a cross from a corner kick in the 27th minute.

In the first minute of overtime in the first half, Zidane himself added a second goal, which was a replica of the first goal.

And in the 90 + 2 minute, Emmanuel Petit unleashed the joy of France by winning the first title in the World Cup, by scoring the decisive third goal.

All of this happened, without any reaction from the stars of the Brazilian national team, led by Ronaldo, who lost in the final and did not present even 1% of his potential.

The stories differed about the poor level with which Ronaldo appeared in the final match.

Some newspapers went out to explain that Ronaldo was betrayed by his girlfriend the day before the match, and he stayed up crying until the morning.

In another story, the French inserted in the food of the Brazilian team in general and Ronaldo, in particular, a kind of muscle relaxant, and the third story is about a threat from the French mafia to the Brazilian team.

All these rumors went unheeded without any evidence, and the only fact remains that France won its first title in the World Cup.