The execrable relationship between Aimé Jacquet and The Team
is in everyone’s memory. Before the coronation of July 12, 1998, the sports daily led a constant smear campaign against the coach, considered too defensive, austere and incapable of instilling a modern vision in the Blues.
The attacks reached their climax in May 1998 when the list of 28 players selected for the preparatory camp in Tignes was announced. The editorialist of The Team signed a particularly acerbic post, describing Jacquet’s method as incoherent and openly stating that he was “not the man for the job” to lead France to victory at home and calling him a “brave guy”.
Aimé Jacquet held immense resentment which he expressed at the end of the final won on July 12, 1998. “Some of the press lied shamefully. I will never forgive them. I have nothing but contempt for these people,” he said in front of millions of viewers, describing the journalists of L’Equipe as “thugs, irresponsible, dishonest and incompetent” and holders of the “monopoly of imbecility”. Enough to earn some, Jérôme Bureau and Vincent Duluc in the lead, death threats.
But according to him, Pierre Ménès, a figure in the newspaper, was not concerned. “In 1998, I was at L’Equipe, and we remember the terrible conflict between Aimé Jacquet and L’Equipe. In any case, he always had the intelligence or the foresight to exclude me from that. He must have had information that I was absolutely not against him. It even cost me quite a bit of money at L’Equipe at that level”he explained in a video on YouTube.
“They told me: ‘Shut your mouth, you don’t know anything about it, Jacquet is rubbish!’ »
“We had a meeting with the 100 people who were concerned by the World Cup, whether they were journalists, photographers… And I asked a question: ‘We have the best goalkeeper in the world, we have the best defense in the world, the best player in the world, we have a tough first round, there is still a real probability that this story will go rather well,’ he continued on the subject, adding:
“And they told me: ‘Shut your mouth, you don’t know anything about it, Jacquet is rubbish!’. When I arrived, I wasn’t far from the truth. »
“ What was delicious was that as there had been a mess with the six excluded from the list, and I had a great relationship with the players of the France team, I was sent as a firefighter on the day of the Brazil-Scotland opening match,
he said again. Aimé always knew that I believed in him, that I believed in this French team, and he always gave me a form of recognition. »
