by Nick Holt
Things never clicked for a Brazilian team clearly unsettled by the pre-match incident and France’s five-man midfield took control of the game. Deschamps did his thing, Petit burst from one end to the other with vigour and panache, and Zidane had room to play his little passes and go past a player here and there.
The first two goals came from corners and both were scored by Zidane, a good header of the ball but not exactly a massive guy. He met Petit’s right-side corner firmly and it went into the goal in precisely the spot Roberto Carlos was supposed to be. He wasn’t. But you knew that.
The second header was even more powerful and just went too quickly for the man on the line to react.
Brazil had moments, but only one or two, and Ronaldo hit his one good chance straight at Barthez. Zagallo didn’t even do him the kindness of taking him off. He was still better than the French strikers; both Guivarc’h and Dugarry missed when one-on-one with Taffarel. Desailly was sent off for a second yellow with twenty-three minutes remaining, but Brazil were gone by then and it was barely noticeable that France were missing both first choice central defenders. Denilson showed flashes in the second half after replacing Leonardo, and he hit the bar in injury-time after deceiving Leboeuf. France went up the other end and banged in the final nail, Petit rounding off an incisive break with a left-foot shot.
I probably haven’t given France enough credit. In a tournament dominated by good defenders, they had the best, with a tight shielding midfield in front. They conceded only one goal in open play and two in all in eleven and a half hours of football. The defence, Deschamps and Emmanuel Petit were thoroughly excellent, Zidane was intermittently brilliant but not as good as you think you remember he was. The other forward players were nondescript, and the coach Aime Jacquet always put caution first; Karembeu, a defender as an extra shielding midfielder was overkill with all those good tacklers, and France could and should have used Patrick Vieira more – he and Petit had just won the double with Arsenal. Another Arsenal player, Nicolas Anelka, although only nineteen, would surely have made more impact than any of the forwards Jacquet picked in his squad.
But the right team won. Maybe. Oh, you decide . . .
World Cup Heroes No.30
Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri,
known as Dunga (1963–)
Brazil
Eric Cantona used the term “water-carrier” to describe Didier Deschamps’ role in the French team. Cantona wasn’t being polite (he rarely was), but the term has stuck as a description of an ego-free midfield player who is prepared to do the dirty work while other more creative players take the glory. Claude Makélélé developed and defined the role and the likes of Busquets and Khedira perform it admirably and athletically.
The first quality water carrier in international football was Dunga. Poor in 1990 he was criticised for being a Brazilian without flair, but the coach, Carlos Parreira, manager of the 1994 squad, knew that, for better or worse, the game was changing and the pure attacking football of old wouldn’t wash, especially as Brazil simply didn’t have enough players of that quality. So he needed Dunga again for the 1994 campaign, to sit in front of the defence and protect and serve. When Parreira dropped Raí, he turned to the unassuming but reliable Dunga as captain. A couple of weeks later he lifted the World Cup. Dunga wasn’t a goalscorer, but he didn’t abdicate any responsibility; when the 1994 Final went to penalties he stepped up and scored his kick, and did it again in the 1998 shoot-out against Holland. And he was tough; in a group game when against Morocco he nearly came to blows when he admonished Bebeto and the veteran striker questioned his authority.
Dunga’s club career started in Brazil, moved to Italy for a few years, then a couple of seasons with Stuttgart; by the 1998 World Cup he had spent three years in the relatively low standard of the J-League in Japan. But he was fit and he knew what the World Cup was about, so he kept his place and went to France as captain again, aged thirty-four. Nor did he disgrace himself, offering a solid defence alongside César Sampaio to allow Rivaldo and Ronaldo freedom to practice their art. Only when Zidane woke up for the final did Dunga finally look off the pace.
Dunga returned as manager of the Brazilian team at the 2010 World Cup, but they didn’t win, and we know what happens to Brazilian managers when they don’t win. A real trooper, though he would never say so himself.
Team of the Tournament, 1998 (they changed it to a squad of 16):
Van der Sar (Holland)
Thuram (France) Desailly (France) F de Boer (Holland) Jarni (Croatia)
Deschamps (France)
Verón (Argentina) Di Biagio (Italy) Rivaldo (Brazil)
Ronaldo (Brazil) Suker (Croatia)
Subs: Chilavert (Paraguay); Gamorra (Paraguay);
Asanovic (Croatia); Zidane (France); Vieri (Italy)
Official Team of the Tournament: Barthez (for Chilavert); Roberto Carlos (for Jarni, disgraceful decision, all fur coat and no knickers); Dunga (better in 1994), Davids (hardworking but not sensational) and Michael Laudrup (one good game – a retirement present) for Deschamps, Di Biagio, Verón and Asanovic with Bergkamp (maybe . . .) plus Brian Laudrup (patchy) up front, no room for Vieri, who carried Italy’s forward line.
Leading scorers: Suker (6); Vieri & Batistuta (5)
Heaven Eleven No.13
France
Coach:
Arsène Wenger: well why not, at least he wouldn’t just let the player run riot and call the shots like they usually try and do
Goalkeepers:
Fabien Barthez: never seemed to make as many mistakes as you expected him to . . .
Joel Bats: another flawed but still good one
Julien Darui: post-war ’keeper, and a really good one by all accounts
Defenders:
Lilian Thuram: Mr Reliable
Manuel Amoros: fast attacking back from the ’80s
Bixente Lizarazu: ditto, ’90s
Laurent Blanc: captain of the World Cup winning team
Marcel Desailly: the Rock
Robert Jonquet: cool ball-playing defender in the ’50s
Marius Trésor: great sweeper in the late ’70s early ’80s
Max Bossis: the boss-man, nearly 100 caps before it became meaningless
Midfield & wide:
Zinedine Zidane: great at his best, but too easy to mark
Michel Platini: could play deep, could play almost in attack, complete midfield player
Alain Giresse: unselfish box-to-box midfield player
Claude Makélélé: set the standard for the modern holding midfield player
Jean Vincent: elegant winger in the ’58 team
Luis Fernández: forceful wide midfielder alongside MP
Raymond Kopa: goalscoring inside-forward with Real Madrid and France
Roger Piantoni: another slick inside-forward from the ’50s
Strikers:
Jean-Pierre Papin: unlucky to miss the two great teams
Just Fontaine: goal machine, often underestimated because he retired early
Thierry Henry: quick, great finisher, but better for Arsenal than France
Eric Cantona: King Eric, so cool, but often unmanageable
Omissions: Defenders Patrick Battiston and William Gallas, midfielders Jean Tigana (we needed some width), Didier Deschamps (Makélélé was a little bit better), Emmanuel Petit and Franck Ribéry (just a bit too inconsistent). Dominique Rocheteau – we’ll pretend he’s injured, he usually was – and Nicolas Anelka. I ignored most of the current lot, they’re all show and wind.
Likely first XI:
Barthez
Thuram Desailly Blanc Lizarazu
Makélélé
Kopa Giresse Platini Zidane
Henry
* Clavijo became the oldest player sent off in a World Cup Finals match when he got his marching orders late in the match against Brazil.
† Lalas is mistakenly listed in some sources as playing for Padova, but that deal was only done after his impressive performances in th
e Finals. He became a cult figure among fans everywhere, with his bizarre hairstyle and buccaneering tackling, but he never really cut the mustard in European soccer.
* Neil Sullivan took over as No.1 after the tournament; he was a solid ’keeper but is, unfortunately for him, best remembered as the bloke who was beaten from the halfway line by David Beckham in 1996.
* Still a bit of a clunk here, Weir improved massively at Everton in his thirties, and was still playing for Scotland in his fortieth year, and for Rangers a couple of years after that. Scotland’s most consistent player of the last decade.
† Another who improved with age. Picked here as a workmanlike defensive midfielder, he dropped back to become a polished central defender at West Ham. Saw him at Charlton in Division One in his mid-thirties; ran the game from sweeper without breaking sweat. Under-rated.
‡ Known in the game as Jukebox, one of the great nicknames.
* Hoddle made Shearer captain because, ostensibly, he felt it would help him win more penalties. Utter rot – the only man who should have captained this team was Adams, a natural leader and a man who had learned the tough way about taking responsibility after battling through alcohol addiction. Shearer was too passive as a captain, and his contributions in TV studios demonstrate he was never the greatest match analyst.
THE BRIDESMAID
UP THE AISLE
8.1 WORLD CUP 2002
As the vote for the hosts of the 2002 World Cup drew near (South American and European entries were not accepted) three countries were still in the frame: Mexico, Japan and South Korea. The two Asian countries began to get nervous that they would miss out if their vote was split, even though it seemed absurd that Mexico might get a third tournament just because there were few alternatives outside Europe and South America.
The solution was for Japan and South Korea to combine their bid – a solution that was deemed acceptable as it won a unanimous verdict from the committee. It was the first time two countries would co-host, and the first time the Finals were held in Asia. Logistics were no problem – the two countries were no further apart than the East and West coast of the United States. FIFA have since stated they will not consider another co-hosting bid. Although I’m sure the right amount of ready cash would persuade them.
The whole hosting issue has become an accountant’s dream/nightmare, with FIFA deciding a policy of rotating between continents is best and then changing their mind a few years later. And they do make a song and dance of it all, I suppose because the TV companies demand it be an event. The next three could be horrendous. Brazil might be a bit of a cock-up, and an awful lot of the population don’t want it. Russia is huge and the travel will be horrendous and punitively expensive and the fans will get ripped off and the racists will boo the black players and all the money will go to a few gangsters . . . I mean businessmen . . . but I guess it’s their turn. Qatar was just the worst decision ever. I hope they move it; I really do, not because I don’t want to see it in the Middle East, but just choose a country that has football pedigree as well as money. I know the North African nations are off-limits at the moment, but why not Egypt in twelve years, or Turkey? Use somewhere like Korea or England or the USA as a short-notice back-up if necessary.
2002
JAPAN & SOUTH KOREA
South Korea
The ten stadia used in Korea weren’t very imaginatively named, at least not in translation: take name of city, add ‘World Cup Stadium’ – job done! Almost all were constructed especially for the finals, and even the older ones were refurbished so as to be unrecognizable; Korea wanted to impress.
The cities used were: Seoul, the capital in the north-west of the country, and a satellite city, Suwon, as well as Incheon nearby. Down the western side of the country were the cities of Daejeon, Jeonju and Gwangju, and the city of Jeju on an island to the south of the Korean mainland. Towards the southeast there was Daegu, and further to the south-east on the coast the cities of Busan and Ulan also hosted matches. Daejeon saw Korea beat Italy, and Gwangju saw them beat Spain on penalties; they finally succumbed to West Germany in Seoul.
Japan
Japan also offered ten stadia, eight of them on the main island of Honshu, but none, oddly enough, actually in the capital, Tokyo.
Yokohama International: the venue for the final was in Yokohama, a satellite city south of Tokyo. The stadium was trialled at the previous year’s Confederations Cup (the money-spinning joke invented by FIFA to fill their coffers when there is no World Cup).
Also in the same part of the country as the capital were Saitama Stadium, in Saitama, a large Tokyo suburb and the Kashima Soccer Stadium in the Ibaraki prefecture slightly to the north.
Along the east coast were Miyagi Stadium in the city of Rifu, and over on the west coast was the Niigata Stadium in the city of that name, where England beat Denmark in the last sixteen. Far to the north, on the island of Hokkaido, was the Sapporo Dome in the city of that name, now used for the city’s strong baseball team as well as for football.
To the south-east was the ECOPA Stadium in Shizuoka, and on the very far south of Honshu were the Kobe Wing Stadium, Kobe, and the Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan’s third largest city after Tokyo and Yokohama. The Nagai was an odd one out in being an existing sports stadium. Across the water from Osaka was the Ōita Stadium in Kyushu island’s biggest city.
Both countries offered up ten major stadia, all with a capacity of over 40,000. Only two were already in existence, the Nagai athletics stadium in Osaka, and the Kashima stadium, home of the J-League team, Kashima Antlers. The other eight stadia in Japan, and ten in South Korea, were all built from scratch, which is pretty impressive, but these two countries stake their international reputation on being pretty damned smart at building stuff. Eight of the Japanese stadia were on the main island of Honshu, with three in the Tokyo area; one was in Ōita on Kyushu Island to the south and one in Sapporo on Hokkaido to the north. Nine of the Korean stadia were on the mainland, with three to the north east in the Seoul / Incheon are, and the tenth was on the island of Jeju south of Korea and south-west of Japan.
FIFA had other concerns. Just before the tournament the General Secretary of FIFA, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, a lawyer, produced a document which he claimed held proof of widespread corruption within the organisation, going to right to the top, including President Sepp Blatter. To cut a long story short the report was suppressed, another legal team was drafted in to refute Zen-Ruffinen and he ended up the subject of an internal investigation which resulted in the suspension of numerous committee members who supported his claims. Only later did it become clear that corruption was indeed widespread within FIFA. Nothing has ever been proven against Sepp Blatter. No doubt the truth will come out years later, as is often the way with these stories. In the meantime a lot of lawyers made a lot of money. They like a lawyer, do FIFA, they make sure small street vendors aren’t allowed to trade near a FIFA World Cup Stadium even if they’ve had their stall there for league matches for the last twenty years. And they make sure the TV cameras don’t show people eating the wrong brand of snack. All useful stuff and integral to the soul of football, wouldn’t you agree?
Qualifying
With two host nations and holders France already in the draw, there were twenty-nine slots to divvy up. Europe got a further thirteen, South America four, Africa five, CONCACAF three and Asia two more. Europe, South America, Asia and Oceania would all contribute one further team to two intercontinental play-offs to determine the final two qualifiers.
In Asia, two final groups of five produced Saudi Arabia as one group winner and China, who would make their first Finals appearance, as the other. China were particularly convincing, winning all their home games without conceding and losing only to Uzbekistan. The runners-up in the Saudi Arabia group, Iran, would have to beat a European team over two legs.
In the last phase in Africa five groups of five would be headed by the five eventual qualifiers. Cameroon, Tunisia and South Africa got throug
h quite comfortably, although South Africa were aided by Guinea getting kicked out for excessive governmental interference.
With three rounds to go in group C, Morocco led with twelve points (two to play), with Senegal in second on nine (also two to play) and Egypt on nine with three to play. The first round made things tough for Egypt as they lost to Morocco, while Senegal didn’t play. Next up Egypt creamed Namibia, and Senegal nabbed a crucial win over Morocco with a goal from El Hadji Diouf. It seemed perfectly plausible that all three teams would finish level on fifteen points and it would come down to goal difference. Advantage Egypt, whose goal difference was nine, while Senegal’s was seven – and bad news for Morocco, who had a goal difference of five and could do nothing about it. On the downside for Egypt they were playing their bitter rivals Algeria away from home, while Senegal only had to travel to play the group whipping boys, Namibia.
When Mido (yes, him, but less broad in the beam than in his time in England) scored for Egypt after an hour everything was level on goal difference, as Senegal were three-up in Namibia. But it was slightly advantage Egypt again, they had the better head-to-head record.
Yacine Bezzaz scored for Algeria and swung things in Senegal’s favour, while goals from Fadiga and N’Diaye gave Senegal a 5–0 win. Egypt couldn’t muster a winner, so Algeria had a good gloat and Senegal qualified.