Hubris had swept through the French delegation, from the bag-carriers to the panjandrums, and including, it must be said, some of the players. No team had won three global tournaments on the trot, not even Pelé’s Brazil or Beckenbauer’s West Germany. France would.
France were the holders. France, so long in search of a centre-forward, could call upon the top goalscorers in the English, French and Italian leagues: Thierry Henry, Djibril Cissé and David Trézéguet. France were the favourites and had shown – in Euro 2000 – they could live with that tag, even thrive on it, as demonstrated by Trezeguet’s golden goal in the final, when they had been outplayed by Italy for large parts.
France had learned to be winners; but those winners were exhausted. Patrick Vieira had played 61 games before landing in South Korea. The results of the physical tests run in early May at the altitude performance centre of Tignes in the French Alps were catastrophic. As Youri Djorkaeff put it: “We were carbonised.”
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“Many of the players had had their heads turned by what had followed the World Cup win in ‘98,” Emmanuel Petit told me later. “The sponsors were everywhere, and they wanted their money’s worth. We should have focused on our job, but no. There was always a function to attend, a hand to shake, or a photoshoot. We were surrounded by people who kept telling us that we were the best, that we couldn’t lose. I lost my head a bit myself. It was a mess.”
How much of a mess we learned after the event, when journalists embedded with the team broke their vow of silence and told of what had happened at Les Bleus’ five-star base in Korea, Seoul’s Sheraton Grande Hill Walker Hotel and Towers.
Nothing was too good or too expensive for Les Bleus and their support staff. Six tons of equipment were shipped, “equipment” which included 20 cases of Château La Lignane and of Domaine de L’Échevin, two estate-bottled Côtes- du-Rhône which were served at team meals, decent enough, but not in the same league as the £4,000 bottle of Romanée-Conti which the head of the FFF, Claude Simonet, ordered at one particularly lavish dinner held in one of the Sheraton’s restaurants – the Sheraton, where a number of the players’ agents had rooms as well; and representatives of the team’s sponsors, of which there were close to 40 in attendance.
Some players – almost all of them coiffeurs, literally “hairdressers”, a term used for those not expected to feature in the first XI – could not resist the temptations of the Sheraton’s nightclub, the Sirocco, and of its troupe of female dancers; they could then retreat incognito to their bedrooms by using a “secret lift” accessible from one of the karaoke booths.
The lack of focus and discipline was compounded by a growing unease within the dressing room. Senior players questioned their manager’s tactical choices. Roger Lemerre intended to stick with a 4-2-3-1 that Patrick Vieira and the stand-in captain Marcel Desailly, in particular, felt was inadequate in the absence of Zinedine Zidane – who would be replaced by Youri Djorkaeff in the playmaker role – and Robert Pires, for whom Sylvain Wiltord was a not entirely convincing substitute. Lemerre wouldn’t budge.
When, a week before the game, Senegal’s coach, Bruno Metsu, confronted the Senegalese journalists who had revealed their team would adopt a 4-1-4-1 formation against France, with Aliou Cissé in front of the back four (“You want France to win or what?”), Lemerre’s reaction was to say: “I’ve known how they’d play for a month. But I am not used to building my team according to the opponent.”
Then there was the Henry dilemma. As a centre-forward he’d become one of the Premier League’s most prolific goalscorers; but Lemerre had earmarked David Trézéguet to play at the tip of France’s attack, pushing the Arsenal striker back to his former position on the left. As Trézéguet had scored 32 goals in 46 appearances for Juventus that season, Lemerre’s choice made some sense. Henry, however, didn’t see it that way, and said so. He was also frustrated by a mysterious injury which had forced him to play a training game against Urawa Reds with a bandaged knee. The contrast with the mood in the Senegal camp couldn’t have been starker.
***
“I remember us chatting before the match,” El Hadji Diouf recalled. “Bruno Metsu came into the changing room and pulled his hair back, as he had a habit of doing. Then he said: ‘What can I possibly say to you today? We’ve been together for a long time now. I know you all so well. You’re a crazy bunch. I know that tonight, after the match is finished, people will be talking about you right across the world. Up you get, and show me what you’re capable of.’ It was tremendous. We didn’t need to say anything. He looked at us and knew we could go out there and win.”
On the eve of the game, Metsu had insisted his players used every second of the hour allotted to get a feel of the pitch. Not so Lemerre, who cancelled the light training session, as it was “not useful”. What was clear from the outset was that Senegal were in no way afraid. They created the first genuine chance, as early as the fifth minute, when Diouf, who perhaps played the game of his life, left Desailly clutching at air to find Khalilou Fadiga, whose shot was far too close to Fabien Barthez.
This scene would be repeated throughout, with Diouf in the role of tormentor, and Franck Leboeuf and Desailly struggling to keep up, to such an extent that France’s full-backs Lilian Thuram and Bixente Lizarazu barely ventured past the halfway line until their team trailed, checking their natural game to compensate for their central defenders’ lack of mobility.
Les Bleus had their moments; but luck and sangfroid deserted them. Then, as it seemed that France were establishing some kind of dominance, right before the half- hour, the unthinkable happened.
Djorkaeff was caught in possession; the ball was passed into the path of Diouf who, in three assured touches and a burst of speed, left Leboeuf for dead on the left and sent a low cross. The ball bounced off Petit and Barthez to land in the path of the onrushing Papa Bouba Diop, the sole Senegal player in a crowd of six panicking defenders. Diop had slipped but was still able to hook the ball into the empty net.
Most of the Senegal team gathered next to the right corner flag to dance around Diop’s shirt. “At half-time, we went into the changing room with a 1-0 lead and big smiles on our faces,” Diouf remembered. “We were giving each other high fives. Bruno came in, and he was annoyed. He proceeded to tear strips off us! He said: ‘Lads, it’s not done yet! There are still 45 to 50 minutes to play. Nothing’s in the bag yet. You can give each other high fives after the match.’ It was exactly what we needed.”
A reaction had to come from France, but whatever was thrown at the Senegal defence was dealt with admirably by Metsu’s back four and the goalkeeper Tony Sylva, with Cissé a one-man wall in front of his box.
When the Emirati referee Ali Bujsaim blew the final whistle to the relief of an exultant Korean crowd, the overwhelming feeling was a mixture of shock and elation. Dakar erupted with joy. Paris ... well, Paris still believed in the heroes of ‘98 and ‘00, but not for long. Harder questions would soon be asked. What they were we already knew: Senegal had asked and answered them.
This is an edited extract from Against All Odds: The Greatest World Cup Upsets, published by Halcyon (£15.99)
