For all supporters of the French team, the victory of the Blues against Croatia, during the semi-final of the 1998 World Cup, was above all marked by the unlikely double of Lilian Thuram, his only two goals in selection. The exclusion of Laurent Blanc, in the last minutes of the meeting, is also in all memories. But for its actors, the evocation of this meeting refers above all to the huge shouting of Aimé Jacquet at halftime.
While his troops appeared to him amorphous during the first period, taken by the stake of this fourth semi-final in the history of the French team, tricolor coach will build his game like never. A sequence captured by the camera of Stéphane Meunier, the director of the documentary “Les Eyes en Les Blues”.
“Philippe, we died, I can no longer find my team. We are dead “he says first of all To his assistant, Philippe Bergeroo, on the way to the locker room.
“Continue like that, you're going to lose.” You are afraid of losing, continue like that ”, he launches in particular, adding: “Or we all go back in block, or we go down from a notch, it's as you want. You take the choice! SO ? Because here we are at fifty meters! Fifty meters, what do you want to do? What do you type in front, what do you want to do? We no longer play football. »»
“Aimed, I had never seen him so upset”
The chat will not necessarily have the expected effect since they barely returned to the field, the Blues concede the opening of the score by Davor Suker.
“I think I hit too hard”then feared the tricolor coach. But Lilian Thuram, at fault on the Croatian goal, will seek equalization a few times later and appear psychologically unlocked. And Aimé Jacquet's talk would not be for nothing.
“Like, I had never seen him so edgy. What marked me was when he said, “Well you will lose the guys!” He placed us before our responsibilities, in fact. Basically, I'm here to guide you, but it also belongs to you. It's up to you to know what you want to do, go to the final or not, had entrusted Bixente Lizarazu on this subject to this subject
The team. It has moved to us clearly even if in the reaction … Football is quite paradoxical sometimes. In the films, after such a speech, we get up and we put them five! Except that, in real life, you get up, you take this goal (Suker, 46th) and you say to yourself: “Damn is not at all what we had planned to do, that's not how it should happen. It's pretty funny somewhere, too; The reaction was secondly. »»
“We were not used to hearing somewhat different words, had supported Alain Boghossian. Suddenly, he felt that it was necessary to push a yell to wake us up and force us to let go. He perceived that we were not concentrated like the other times, that something was not going round. In my opinion, he touched us precisely to make us understand that we were not in the right mood and that it could harm us. »»
If he was more marked by his speech at the half-time of the final against Brazil, when he invited his players to attack the second period as if the score was still 0-0, Emmanuel Petit was also impressed by the words of Aimé Jacquet. “Very quickly in the first period we lost the thread, but the Croats were not just anyone,” continues small. We were not serene. We had the feeling that we did not hold the reins. Aimé must have noted it. It was freaking out to see the group not completely serene ”he explained.
