Ibrahim Ba is questioned in the last issue of France Football On the lack of representation of French coaches of African origin in Ligue 1. The winger who passed through AC Milan and OM is well known for being one of the six players excluded from the French team by Aimé Jacquet on 22 May 1998. The verdict was terrible for these “banished”, two and a half weeks before the opening match of the World Cup organized in France, for a 3-0 victory against South Africa at the Vélodrome stadium .
In addition to “Ibou” Ba, the goalkeeper Lionel Letizi, the central defender Martin Djetou, the Sabri Lamouchi and Pierre Laigle circles and striker Nicolas Anelka were dismissed by the tricolor coach a few days before the competition. Disarnsed by the sentence of Jacquet and especially by the coronation of their teammates on July 12, 1998 against Brazil (3-0), these six players were traumatized for years. With the exception of the young Anelka, who won Euro 2000 and then played as a national team until 2010.
Aimé Jacquet too in shock
The book The Night of the Cursedpublished by Karim Nedjari in 2018 (at Fayard editions), returns to the announcement of Aimé Jacquet at the excluded Letizi, Djetou, Lamouchi, Laigle and Anelka. In room 15 of the Château de Clairefontaine, Aimé Jacquet explains to them: “You guessed it, for you it's over, the time for separation has arrived. My choices were difficult, I assume them, because it is in my function to assume them, but above all because I made them exclusively on field criteria. I banned the emotional of all my appreciations to decide as a professional ». And conclude: “It is not in five days that we choose 22”.
Destroyed by the French press since Euro 96 (especially
The team), Aimé Jacquet had made the very questionable choice to convene 28 players on May 5 for a first internship in Tignes. The group led by Captain Didier Deschamps was necessarily going to be amputated by six players … Two days after the constitution of the 22 list, the 57 -year -old coach made Vagal discomfort “So much he suffered from imposing this test on six of his boys”reports Karim Nedjari's book. The French team had settled in Casablanca for the Hassan II tournament and three preparation matches against Belgium, Morocco and Finland.
