Frank Leboeuf says France wanted to play ‘horrendous’ Brazil in 1998 World Cup final and knew they’d won at half-time

Click on the links to read parts one and two.

French fans don’t say well done to me for World Cup win… they thank me

When I think back to 1998, I know that the French media thought we were an average team. We didn’t have the best preparation in the games leading up to the tournament. Nobody believed we were able to go that far, but with every game we played, our confidence grew and grew. All of a sudden, more and more people were cheering us on and believing in us.

And then the pressure came in the latter stages of the tournament, against Paraguay, Italy and then Croatia – before that famous game against Brazil in the final.

Every day, even 20 years on, someone will talk to me about that World Cup. French people don’t say well done to me, they say ‘thank you’. It’s almost like it was a huge relief for the people of France to win the competition in their own country. For two or three months, the people of France felt together; it’s great that football can do that to you. Every French person will remember their summer of 1998.

God – or something else out there – helped us reach final in 1998

At half-time in the semi-final, we went in level at 0-0 agaibst Croatia and our manager, Aime Jacquet, was so upset with us.

“You know what? If you want to lose, keep on playing like this, because I am telling you, you will lose. It’s up to you guys to change this, because I’ve put out the best XI – in my opinion – and I’m not ready to change anything, because I think you can do much better. But right now, we’re going to exit the World Cup. If we keep playing like this, we will not be playing against Brazil. Go out and prove me wrong.”

We go out for the second half and I’m still on the bench at this point, Davor Suker then scores inside a minute and we’re 1-0 down. Jacquet is stood on the touchline with his hands out, just like ‘et voila; I told you!’

 

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And then something happened, I think with the help of God or something or someone else out there. Lilian Thuram – who had never scored before for his country and would never score after – came out and scored two goals to turn the game around. Even he can’t believe it with that second goal. He scored one with his right and the other with his left. How he scored that goal with his left, how he managed to curve the ball in, none of us had a clue. That foot – with Lilian – was only ever used to stand on! But that’s part of the magic of football. You need luck, sometimes. You need something different, and on that night, things just went our way in terms of the scoreline.

Lilian played over 140 games for France and scored only two goals. Both were on that night. It just goes to show that to create history for your country, you don’t need to go and score goals all the time – sometimes two are enough!

Blanc’s World Cup semi-final red card will be a regret for the rest of his life

I have to say I didn’t pay attention to how Laurent Blanc was in our dressing room after the Croatia semi-final. I was so overwhelmed by the situation. Ten minutes into me coming on the pitch, that was the first moment it dawned on me that I’d be playing in the final, in Blanc’s place.

I was told that Blanc wasn’t feeling very well at all in that dressing room and, of course, I can understand that. It’s every player’s dream to play in a World Cup final – and he deserved to play in one! But because of one incident, which I think the referee got wrong, he was denied that opportunity. He only pushed Bilic, and in today’s game VAR would prove nothing happened.

But that’s part of Blanc’s life. It’s something he has to live with and I guess it will be a regret of his for the rest of his life. But it doesn’t take away from anything else he achieved as a player – he was outstanding. I played against and with Blanc many times – our careers seemed to follow each other, which was something special for me. We are friends; he came to see me in one of my plays when he was manager of PSG. We’ve had many great times together. There is no adversity between us – the media decided there was. The coach put us in competition, but there’s mutual respect there, I promise you. I really think he was a fantastic player.

We knew we were world champions at half-time

Your job is to mark Ronaldo or Rivaldo, and on paper that’s such a difficult task, of course. But that was my job, it was my life. I was working for the Times magazine at the time, and I promised them that we’d win the World Cup. I still have that article where I said ‘yeah, don’t worry, we’re going to win it’.

We were happy to play against Brazil in the final. We wanted to avoid the Netherlands. I really think that they were better than Brazil. We knew that, defensively, from corner-kicks especially, Brazil were horrendous. They didn’t really care and we saw that with the first two goals from Zinedine Zidane. Of course, with all due respect to that squad, they had the ability to change the game at any moment going forward, and change the destiny of our lives, but we felt invincible in that final.

 

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We go in 2-0 up at half-time, and we already knew we were champions of the world.

Don’t forget, Marcel Desailly was sent off in that game. We played 10 against 11 against Brazil and we won 3-0. We were so strong, with players like Didier Deschamps, Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira. Everyone worked so hard defensively, while at the same time being so effective going forward. I think we conceded one goal in that whole tournament, and scored 16. We finished with the best attack and the best defence in that World Cup. We worked together and fought for each other.

There was never a moment in those few days between the semi and the final that I even considered the possibility of us losing.

‘Absolutely crazy’ moment in last-minute of World Cup final

I can remember one absolutely crazy moment late on in the game, just before Emmanuel Petit scored to make it 3-0. Remember, he’s supposed to be playing centre-back alongside myself, because Marcel Desailly had been sent off.

When Brazil’s corner came to nothing and the ball went towards Patrick Vieira, I started to think ‘OK, maybe I can go forward and hit them on the counter-attack’. Then I remembered ‘no, no, no, I’m a defender, we’re 2-0 up, we just need to defend this lead and play out the next minute or so.’ You always know games can change in just a minute, and in that moment I wasn’t entirely sure exactly how long was left to play, so that’s why I didn’t go forward.

Suddenly I see Petit overtaking me and going for it! It was unbelievable! I guess it just proved he’s not a defender – he’s not that defensive-minded! But what a moment it was for our country, and what a guy Petit is.

With Marcel Desailly, I think Petit was the best player in that French team. We all talk about Zinedine Zidane because of the goals he scored in the final, and he became the Zidane that we know starting from that quarter-final against Italy. He was absolutely fantastic in that game, and then again against Croatia and Brazil.

But in terms of the tournament as a whole, Desailly and Petit – my god, they were just unbelievable.