The British and the French don’t like each other, they love to tease each other on all sorts of topics and show superiority. Among them, history has shared wars, diplomatic fights, but also many alliances, even in the two largest world military conflicts of the 20th century.
When the players of the two teams involved in the World Cup quarter-finals take to the field on Saturday evening at 21 to listen to “Marseillaise” and “God Save the King”, it will be a fight to the last breath. The stakes are too high.
Another battle in a football Hundred Years War, but… it’s different – it’s just an analogy with history, as the infamous Hundred Years War (which actually lasted 116 years) was exactly between English and French in the 14th and 15th centuries.
In reality, these countries have no football enmity. Curiously, fans of London and Leeds, as well as those of Paris and Lyon, will tell you:
“The enemy in football is Germany.”
There is a rivalry between them, of course, especially in the big league fixtures, such as the quarter-final in Qatar now. But there aren’t that many either, which is strange even for two of Europe’s biggest soccer powers, who laid the foundations of the game on the continent.
If there’s one sporting confrontation between the English and the French that can be called a feud, it’s in rugby. Not in football. The battles there are relentless and the traditional Six Nations tournament is often decided between these teams.
In football it is different.
Their first match was on May 10, 1923, so that’s nearly 100 years of rivalry, really. This match was played in front of as many as 30,000 spectators at the time at the Stade John Joseph Pershing in Paris, named after an American general famed for his heroics on European battlefields during World War I. England beat 4:1 as guests in this first match.
In the stands is Jules Rimet, now president of the newly formed French Football Federation. Thanks to this man, we watch the World Cup today, the idea of him came to life in the 1930s in Uruguay and the tradition began.
England and France played 13 more times in friendlies until their first official meeting, way back in 1962 in preliminary screenings for Euro 1964. From these first 14 checks the balance was desperate for the “Roosters”: 2 wins, one draw and 11 defeats , and the goal difference is 18-47 for the English.
And, curious or not, the very first official meetings bring joy to France – with 1:1 and 5:2 in the knockout for the European championship in question, “Le Bleu” goes ahead.
In history they have met only twice in the World Cup final – incredible for teams that have together more than 170 World Cup appearances.
In 1966, England beat 2-0 in their final group match to leapfrog top-placed Uruguay, entering a more tolerable flow towards the final. And there, as we know, he won his only world title.
16 years later comes one of the unforgettable matches between the two teams.
At the 1982 World Cup in Spain, they were in the same group, and their meeting was already beginning – in Bilbao at the “San Mames”. Much is expected from the French team, full of young names and already champions Battiston, Gires, Roscotto, Tigana… And, of course, with Michel Platini, who is already being talked about as a super player.
However, the English took the lead in the 27th second with a goal from Bryan Robson and won 3:1. The goal remains one of the fastest in World Cup history.
10 years later, Platini was already a coach, and at Euro 1992 England and France put the world audience to sleep with one of the most boring matches of the tournament – 0:0 in the group.
At Euro 2004, France again won 2:1 in the group, and eight years later the meeting finished 1:1 in Ukraine, also during the European tournament. And with that, their official meetings peter out.
Overall balance: 17 wins for England, 9 for France, 5 draws.
And a detail that we are obliged to add to the history of these games. In 2015, bombings hit Paris on the evening of the Roosters’ match against Germany at the Stade de France. There were 129 casualties.
The duel had been stopped and fear and tension had paralyzed all of Europe.
Just four days later, France visited England at Wembley in one of the most exciting friendlies ever played. The stadium was fully lit up in the colors of the French flag and 90,000 English people chanted the “Marseillaise” in unison before kick-off, in support of a country suffering and grieving from the trauma of terrorism.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Didier Deschamps admitted at the time. He will lead the Gauls again on Saturday evening and will no doubt remember that night seven years ago when the national anthems were playing.
After that, the match will begin and the only thing that matters is the place in the semifinals.
