During its previous match against the selection of Israel, the French team, then led by the sulphurous Raymond Domenech, was greeted with whistles by the public in Tel Aviv, on Wednesday March 30, 2005. The Blues without Zinédine Zidane, Lilian Thuram and Claude Makelele (who came out of international retirement a few months later) had difficult qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup. A year before “Zizou”’s headbutt on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final in Berlin, there was David Trezeguet’s head-to-head against an Israeli player…
It was precisely “Trezegol” who opened the scoring for the French visitors in front of the 32,150 spectators at the Ramat Gan Stadium, by heading in a cross from Sylvain Wiltord in the 50th minute, but the Juventus center forward was sent off five minutes later. His one and only red card in the French team and one of his three career reds. Tackled from behind by Tal Ben HaĂŻm, the colossus of Bolton at the time, the Franco-Argentinian quickly revealed himself and lightly touched his opponent’s face. A gesture of humor punished with an exclusion by the German referee Mr. Merk. A decision “severe” for GaĂ«l Givet, who started this match.
Trezeguet in front, Henry on the bench
After this 31st goal from Trezeguet in the selection (then overtaking Just Fontaine and Jean-Pierre Papin), the evening on Israeli soil turned into a poor performance since the locals equalized 10 minutes from the end through Walid Badier, who took advantage of a failed intervention by Fabien Barthez. Domenech, however, thought he had made a perfect move by aligning a particularly solid team, with an improbable Benoît Pedretti-Alou Diarra-Patrick Vieira midfield, leaving Sylvain Wiltord and Florent Malouda to occupy the wings of the 4-3-3. Only Vikash Dhorasso came on, in the 91st minute, with Thierry Henry remaining on the bench until the end…
The French team then conceded its fourth draw in six days in its qualifying groups, after a 0-0 against the Israelis at the Stade de France to start the campaign and two other scoreless results against Ireland and Switzerland. Catastrophic! The Blues then recovered and a final victory against Cyprus, 4-0, thanks in particular to ZinĂ©dine Zidane’s opener, allowed them to finish at the top of this group, heading to Germany, but in an atmosphere still more deleterious at each gathering in Clairefontaine.
