Entered the pantheon of French football on July 12, 1998, Aimé Jacquet did not completely give in to euphoria when celebrating the greatest victory in the history of the Blues. In front of millions of viewers, the French coach does not hesitate to attack those who sharply criticized him before the World Cup. “ Some press lied shamefully. I will never forgive them. I have nothing but contempt for these people.”he says, referring in particular to the journalists of The Team, qualified as “thug, irresponsible, dishonest and incompetent” and holders of “monopoly of imbecility”.

The reason for his wrath? The front page of The Team “And we play at 13? » the day after the announcement of 28 players, the leading sports daily drove the point home by calling it “good guy” in his editorial. And this after affirming that the former Bordeaux coach “wasn’t the man for the job.” But this choice to retain 28 players instead of the expected 22 before eliminating six on the eve of departure for Morocco, where the Blues must play their last preparation matches, caused other victims: the six players who remained on the team quai, Lionel Letizi, Pierre Laigle, Martin Djetou, Ibrahim Ba, Sabri Lamouchi and Nicolas Anelka.

I felt like my guts had been ripped out.

The six men will have a hard time digesting this sequence and will hold it against the coach. “He didn’t find the right words, he was someone who had a heart and who didn’t want to offend us, (but) he was caught by Lamouchi who asked him for explanations,” had told Martin Djetou. “He wanted us not to leave France, that we follow a program in case of problems, but no one accepted. »

Sabri Lamouchi had undoubtedly been the most vehement in front of Aimé Jacquet. “Not having played in the 1998 World Cup. It was cruel… I felt like my guts had been ripped out,” he remembered again last spring. “I felt like a boxer pinned by a heavyweight in the corner of the ring. I was knocked out, held by the ropes with an opponent who continues to punch, punch and punch some more,” he also explained in the book The night of the cursedby Karim Nadjeri.

Lionel Letizi, whose career with the French team had undoubtedly been turned upside down a few months earlier in Russia because of a bad ball, was just as affected. The goalkeeper was so pale when leaving Clairefontaine that Henri Émile, worried, asked the Blues security agent from the national police protection group (GPPN) to travel with the Lorraine doorman to Metz. “I arrived, cooked. I opened the door and found myself in front of the alarm box. Can’t remember the code. The bell rang in the middle of the night, waking up the entire neighborhood. he said.