Aimé Jacquet, the man who gave France its first world champion title, recently turned 83. Sympathetic messages and tributes have continued to flow to him ever since. Recently, a French international spoke to thank him warmly.
“I call Aimé regularly to make sure he is well”
The player in question is Frank Leboeuf. Speaking to So Foot, the former defender said he was very grateful to Jacquet: “I love Aimé so much – I call him regularly to make sure he’s okay. I call him God.”
While praising his former coach, Leboeuf nevertheless indicated that he had a bad taste of being only a substitute at Euro 96: “I play all the qualifiers for Euro 96 and Aimé reminds Alain Roche that he uses and I don’t play a second in England.”
And when it was pointed out to him that there was still Laurent Blanc ahead of him in the hierarchy, Leboeuf retorted: “ I started in the central hinge with Marcel against Romania in 1995, the benchmark match for the new generation of Aimé Jacquet. So, not having a single minute at the Euro is hard… I never had any explanations. At the time, he just had choices to make, and the press against him. And then, he loved Lolo. Rightly so, because he was a great player.”
