On July 2, 2000, the French team won the Euro, after an exceptional final and a successful tournament like few others in history. Two years after the triumph of July 12, 1998, the Blues went even higher and marked their era, beyond their record. Here is Chapter 1, on building this team like no other.
This story begins with a victory. Not just any. But not the one you imagine. If it is unique, because it is new, it is not dated July 12, 1998 and does not bear the seal of eternity. However, with the triumph of the Stade de France, it shares that of excellence.
It is February 10, 1999 and, if we know since the sweet summer of 1998 that nothing will be as before because French football has entered a new era, this winter evening will transform the face of these Blues champions of the world, almost naturally. Because talent does not ask for permission. It is essential.
Euro 2000
“France at Euro 2000, we are not far from an absolute armada”
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This February 10, 1999 therefore, this talent wears the face of a young striker named Nicolas Anelka. Not yet 20 years old, stayed at the door before the 1998 World Cup with five other unfortunate less talented than him, the Arsenal player was not offended in the least and continued on his way, as if nothing was. At the start of the year, he is invited to Wembley for a gala evening, with the world champions.
The center of gravity has moved
Him, the kid who makes Highbury vibrate will strike a huge blow in the heart of the honorable speaker. Wembley, he already knows from having played there five times. He already scored there, moreover, with Arsenal, in the Cup final. He’s going to put the cover back on. Twice. Two and a half times, one would be tempted to say. Because his first sparkle, this firecracker on the bar, had indeed crossed the line of Nigel Martyn. Postponed.
A few minutes later, Anelka will definitively martyr her friends in the defense of Arsenal, who constitute three quarters of the English rearguard. A double for a page of history: France had never imposed itself on English soil. A short distance from the end of a century that ended up being theirs, the Blues have, finally, made the island a conquered territory.
Add to this that, and this is undoubtedly the most important if not the most symbolic, the French team, which was already rolling in gold, has found “its” Ronaldo, dixit Didier Deschamps. The future and achievements of Anelka in the blue jersey will moderate the prophecy of the future coach of the France team. Nevertheless, something happened at Wembley that evening: the center of gravity has shifted. Irresistibly drawn to the front, the Blues will no longer be able to reverse.
Another event, gone unnoticed, will have XXL repercussions on French football: Sylvain Wiltord honors his first cape in the blue jersey and, in full flock with the future champions of Bordeaux France, also embodies the richness of the reservoir available to the Tricolores .
France is a team that won the World Cup with a center forward with zero goals. She finds herself a few months later with a shovel of attackers to make the whole planet pale and give cold sweats to the defenses of the rest of the world: if David Trezeguet and Thierry Henry have a little trouble digesting the World Cup – the second does will not play once with the Blues in 1999 – and even pass by the box Hopes when Nicolas Anelka takes off, time speaks for them and the two ex-Monegasque friends will return in due time to build up exceptional armada, of which Christophe Dugarry is also a member.
This team is there to break the balls of a lot of opponents…
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“1998 had more defensive characteristics. 2000 had more offensive characteristics. It happened naturally because there was more offensive potential, says Bixente Lizarazu, a major player in the two coronations. It had grown because we had more players and more maturity among certain young people: Trezeguet, Henry, Anelka. Sylvain Wiltord also joined us. Add to that that other players had grown thicker, like Robert Pires. And, obviously, we still had Zizou and Youri as conductors. We ended up with a more developed offensive potential “.
Multiplied offensive potential and increased self-confidence. July 12, 1998 obviously has a lot to do with it. He does everything, even. Because the gang at Aimé Jacquet, who were doomed to the gémonies in case of failure at home, rose to the top of the world and, instantly, became another team. It exudes exceptional confidence, without the excesses that will border its path and its successive outings from the second half of 2001. The Blues do not yet take for the Beatles and do not yet rhyme confidence and sufficiency.
Emmanuel Petit, part of these Blues whose Euro will be partially spoiled by malaria crises, was at the forefront. He too felt that this team had changed and had even more to give: “Winning a World Cup sets the stage. But at the same time, we were a generation that had not reached its fullness. It foreshadowed great things, especially since we were in the best European clubs and that we were performing for the most part. At this precise moment, you can tell yourself that this team is there to break the balls of a lot of opponents … “
Admittedly, the qualifications for the Euro are not a long, calm river. Remember Andorra. The trap. The expulsion of Dugarry. Leboeuf’s penalty. Remember, too, that the chopper goes by on the last day when, at the kick-off of a France – Iceland with a knife, like half an hour from the end, France is virtually third of its qualification group and, therefore, eliminated. Unimaginable. But yet very real. David Trezeguet, already, will pull it of a bad step.
The hunted hunter
Qualifying in pain is a bit of a habit of French football before a successful competition. And the Tricolores land all the same in the Netherlands and in Belgium – co-organizers of the Euro – with an indisputable label of favorites. Because they have already won. And having won, it changes you men and a team. It also changes the way we look at you. And that, Bixente Lizarazu (97 selections) barely felt his stripes of world champions released.
“Until you have won, you do not know if you have the right method and sufficient talent. When you have won, you know that you are right, there is no team that doesn’t impressed, explains the former left side of Bayern Munich. You approach matches with the confidence of someone who knows that if they put the ingredients, they can win again “. The outside look also changes: “The adversaries are now looking at you with distrust and admiration. France is no longer an ordinary team, it is a world champion team.”
The Blues understood this during the qualifiers for the European Nations Championship, the last international meeting of the 20th century. The slightest relaxation puts them in danger. Because opposite, the idea of hitting the world champions increases the forces tenfold as much as it can annihilate them.
France is now in the shoes of the hunted, as it runs behind an unprecedented double: becoming European champion after conquering the world is a gamble that no one has accomplished. The FRG had succeeded the reverse double in 1972, won the European Championship organized in the flat country, then the double on its grounds.
The Blues arrive at the Euro with 18 of the 22 world champions. Only Bordeaux residents Ulrich Ramé, Johan Micoud and Sylvain Wiltord, as well as Nicolas Anelka joined the group. Lionel Charbonnier, Alain Boghossian, Bernard Diomède and Stéphane Guivarc’h are not there, for various reasons.
“What do you want to teach them?”
Aimé Jacquet, too, returned his apron, but the man who took over the work is a loyal one, Roger Lemerre. Intelligently often, enigmatically the rest of the time, the former assistant accompanies a team that stands on two legs. “Break nothing”, as he will say after the final, was his primary goal. It was obvious. It was still necessary to achieve this.
At the Euro, which will change his destiny as a man since he will meet his wife there, Lemerre will also fulfill his destiny as a technician. “France is fortunate to have great players ahead: Anelka, Henry, Trezeguet, Wiltord, Dugarry, Zidane. It would have been a shame to deprive ourselves of this wealth. This victory is that of attack football”, he will rejoice.
To conquer the Old Continent, Lemerre has rebuilt a staff, of which René Girard is an integral part. The future coach of the champions of France in Montpellier is quickly captivated by what he sees on the field. During matches, but also and above all during training sessions. “I arrive in 1998, after the World Cup. To be world champion, that does not happen every day. In 1998, the team did not yet have full fullness in its football, he explains to us. In 2000, however, it was something quite exceptional. Training was magical. I had not been born the last rain, I had seen many teams at the heart of an honorable career of player … But I had never seen a team release such a maturity and develop a football so accomplished. We left very little room for the opponent. We felt the confidence of a group which, over time, always asserted a little more ”.
What will become a default on the side of South Korea in 2002 is still a force in 2000. “These players take you where they want and what they want to do. Especially when they have this temperament. In front of me, I had a war machine, he still enjoys it today. Look at the central defense: White – Desailly, it’s monstrous. What do you want to teach them? In all positions, we had the best in the world ”. In front, it is a novelty. And Roger Lemerre will benefit from it.
The coach of the Blues, who no longer speaks to the media, liked what he saw during the Hassan-II tournament with the pair Henry – Anelka, in the last preparation match largely won against Morocco (1- 5). He aligns the two men against Denmark, when they enter the Euro competition. Opening of Laurent Blanc’s score after the quarter of an hour. Henry, at the cost of a frantic cavalcade, doubles the bet after 64 minutes. Wiltord, finally, will close the brand in additional time. Already. 3-0. Again.
Faced with the Czech European vice-champions, beaten when they entered the fray, the case is a more complicated one. Lemerre found his Blues more lively with three recoverers in the second period and, moreover, can afford to wait. He therefore “sacrifices” Youri Djorkaeff. Way of speaking, because once in play, it is the Snake that makes the difference and offers the victory to the Habs (2-1). 180 minutes contested, one place in the quarter. The Netherlands and the defeat of hairdressers (2-3)? For butter. A simple twist. This French team there has the luxury of taking what we put them on the way. It will be Spain. And the best is yet to come.
Continuation of “The blue symphony”, Tuesday with our chapter 2: 2000, the true masterpiece of Zidane
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