DON’T BLEU IT!
This is players’ chance for immortality... the French never forget our team of ’98
EMMANUEL PETIT has warned France’s World Cup squad not to let their shot at immortality pass them by.
The former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder was a key member of the squad when Les Bleus triumphed on home soil in 1998.
Petit played his part throughout the tournament, but particularly in the final. He provided the cross from which Zinedine Zidane scored the first of his two goals, before bagging the third himself to round off a 3-0 win over Brazil.
Two decades on, Petit and his pals are still feted for their achievements that summer. And he hopes that, in another 20 years, Antoine Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe, Olivier Giroud (right), Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kante & Co are being venerated to the same degree.
Petit said: “It never stops, even this morning when I went to get the plane. People stop you every single time, they want to take a picture with you and it’s always the same word that comes up, ‘Merci!’ “I was talking with my former team-mates Bixente Lizarazu, Christophe Dugarry and Frank Leboeuf last week and we said we are still always surprised about what we receive from people every day. It has been 20 years and it’s like a tree giving fruit every single season – it’s amazing. So the message I would send to this group of players if I was manager is, ‘You have the opportunity to make history – take it’.” Petit certainly did.
And he added: “Scoring in the final is the cherry on the cake.
“I was not formed to score and not supposed to score goals.
“When you lift the trophy and when you score in the final, you have the feeling that you are the centre of the world, that you have
the world’s attention. Only a few times have I felt the same emotion – such as when my kids were born.
“You have the feeling that you were in the right place at the right moment and it’s a privilege because I always said that what we did, we were prepared to do, but you never know what’s going to happen.
“Normal people can do extraordinary things when they believe in themselves.”
The French have a reputation for self-destructive arguments within the squad, but a good spirit can conquer the world, according to Petit. He added: “Teams have to have confidence all together if they are going to win a World Cup because we are playing a collective sport, not an individual one.
“The individual can have a big impact on results, but, at the end of the day, it’s the team that wins. Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, they cannot do it on their own.
“Even Zidane (right) in 1998 couldn’t win the World Cup himself. We had to be a real team – united, very strong against criticism and always focused on our targets. “And when you prepare for a big tournament like this, the details are very important. “Nutrition, recovery, sleep, training sessions… you have to put pressure on yourself to be on top, you cannot think, OK, I will do this later’. No, that’s not possible. Winning the World Cup is not a surprise, it’s a long journey and you get what you deserve.” Petit, a Paddy Power News columnist, believes France can reach the semi-finals at least. He said: “If you have a good draw and you’re lucky through the games, maybe we can expect something beautiful. We could be beaten as well in the group stage – anything can happen. “If you look what we did in Brazil (losing to Germany in the quarter-finals), and what happened two years ago at the Euros ( finishing runners-up to Portugal) we can expect semi-finals.”