Before the immense France-Bulgaria disaster of November 17, 1993 at the Parc des Princes, the Blues at the time were already seeing themselves at the 94 World Cup in the United States and Jean-Pierre Papin, captain of the team, had made the list of 22 with coach Gérard Houllier.
French football “celebrated” the 30th anniversary of France-Bulgaria 93, one of the terrible fiascos in the history of the Blues. On November 17, 1993, the French selection missed qualifying for the 1994 World Cup in the United States by conceding a fatal goal in the 90th minute from Emil Kostadinov, in a stunned Parc des Princes. All the French supporters already saw themselves there…
The French team only needed one point in the last two qualifying matches to secure their ticket for “America”, after a 2-0 success in Finland at the start of September. On the way back from Tampere, coach Gérard Houllier and Jean-Pierre Papin, the scorer and captain of the team, then drew up the list of 22 players for the US World Cup. “JPP” had been the captain since the retirement of Manuel Amoros in 1992.
A month later, the Blues completely collapsed against Israel, already at the Parc des Princes (2-3 defeat), and the preparation for France-Bulgaria, in mid-November, was disrupted by the moods of David Ginola. “El Magnifico”, who entered the game in place of Papin, ended up losing the ball on Kostadinov’s goal and Houllier then described the behavior of the PSG striker as “crime against the French team”.
In the process, Aimé Jacquet, assistant to Gérard Houllier, was named “provisional coach” and gave the captaincy to Eric Cantona (despite the presence of Papin). The armband then rotated between several executives of the group before the promotion of Didier Deschamps in the run-up to Euro 96. Two years before the world coronation of the band to Zidane at the Stade de France against Brazil…
