While the Blues will taste a World Cup semi-final again on Wednesday against Morocco, the France team had come close to correctional in 1998 against Croatia, forcing Aimé Jacquet to give voice.
Forced to go through the golden goal against Paraguay in the round of 16 then by an unbreathable penalty shootout against Italy in the quarter-finals, the French team was left for a new capital scare against Croatia in the semi-finals. After a first period of the most sluggish, the Blues indeed found themselves led to the score from the first moments of the second period.
On the edge of the abyss and about to experience another failure at the gates of a World Cup final, as in 1958, 1982 or 1986, the Blues owed their salvation only to an improbable double from Lilian Thuram . An insane exploit which perhaps finds its origin in the speech for the less muscular of Aimé Jacquet at half-time of the match.
What are you afraid of?
“We go up to two an hour, when we have the ball we go up to two an hour! No luck, but no luck guys! We are annihilating all our chances. It’s not difficult… So, either we react and we go because there’s a final at the end. Or you drop. And you wait. And you wait for us to throw the coin in the air. There’s no one moving! No one reacts thus released the tricolor coach in the privacy of the locker room as the images of the documentary will show “Games in the Blues”. We’re down to ten amorphous guys. What are you afraid of? Who are you afraid of? Fear? But you guys are going to lose, I tell you. You’re going to lose, you don’t have to worry. »
And given the failed start to the second half of the Blues, Aimé Jacquet even wondered if he hadn’t been too strong…