France national football team

The French football team is among the top teams in international football. It is fielded by the French Football Federation and competes as a member of UEFA.

France came third in the 1958 FIFA World Cup. The generation of Michel Platini and others came fourth in 1982, and third in 1986. In between, they won the European Championship in 1984.

France's most successful years were the late 1990s, the generation of Zinedine Zidane and others. This team made the semi-finals of . Two years later, they hosted and won the 1998 FIFA World Cup, defeating the defending champions Brazil 3-0. France's inaugural triumph also made them the first host in 20 years to capture the World Cup. They also won , defeating Italy 2-1 in a come from behind victory, giving them the distinction of being the first national team to hold both the World Cup and Euro titles since West Germany did so in 1974. France held the top position in the FIFA World Rankings system from 2001-2002.

France failed to maintain that pace in subsequent tournaments, however, suffering a stunning first round elimination in the 2002 FIFA World Cup and then losing in the quarter-finals of . Jacques Santini resigned as coach and Raymond Domenech was picked as his replacement.

France struggled in the qualifiers for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, even though the team was seeded in a group that included the relatively unheralded teams of Israel, Switzerland and the Republic of Ireland, prompting Domenech to persuade "golden generation" members Claude Makélélé, Lilian Thuram and Zidane out of international retirement to help the national team qualify.

The team was greeted with modest expectations as it entered the World Cup tournament, with many arguing that despite the return of the three stars, its roster was too old to be competitive. After a slow start in the group stage, France won their final group game to advance to the knockout round, where they upset heavily favoured Spain 3-1 in a come-back victory to advance to the quarter-finals. France next eliminated defending World Cup champion and top-ranked Brazil 1-0 to advance into the cup semi-finals. The game made France the first team to have shut out the five-time champions in consecutive matches; Fabien Barthez was the keeper in both matches, giving him the distinction of being the only keeper to have defeated Brazil twice. France now has a 3-1 all-time record against Brazil in World Cup finals play, having won the last three meetings. Following a 1-0 semi-final victory over Portugal, France lost the 2006 final 1-1 (5-3 on penalties) to Italy, a game in which Zidane scored a goal (becoming only the third player to score in two World Cup final games) but also was sent off with a red card.

World Cup record

Year	Finish	Wins	Losses	Draws	Goals Scored	Goals Against
1930	Round 1	1	2	0	4	3
1934	Round 1	0	1	0	2	3
1938	Quarter-final	1	1	0	4	4
1950	Did Not Qualify
1954	Round 1	1	1	0	3	3
1958	Semi-final (Third place)	4	2	0	23	15
1962	Did Not Qualify
1966	Round 1	0	2	1	2	5
1970	Did Not Qualify
1974	Did Not Qualify
1978	Round 1	1	2	0	5	5
1982	Semi-final (Fourth place)	3	3	1	16	12
1986	Semi-final (Third place)	5	1	1	12	6
1990	Did Not Qualify
1994	Did Not Qualify
1998	Champions	6	0	1	15	2
2002	Round 1	0	2	1	0	3
2006	Runners-Up	4	0	3	9	3
Total		27	18	6	95	64

European Championship record

1960 - Fourth place
1964 to 1980 - Did not qualify
1984 - Champions
1988 - Did not qualify
1992 - Round 1
1996 - Semi-finals
2000 - Champions
2004 - Quarter-finals

Famous Past players

2006 World Cup squad

Head coach: Raymond Domenech

/ Free agent

Injured players

No. 9 Djibril Cissé missed the World Cup due to a broken leg suffered in the friendly between France and China. Sidney Govou was announced as his replacement on June 8, 2006.^*

Tentative starting line-up and formation

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/soccer/01/17/profile.france/index.html
4-2-3-1 formation

Player records

Most capped French players

As of July 10, 2006, the ten players with the most caps for France are:

#	Name	Career	Caps	Goals
1	Lilian Thuram*	1994 - Present	121	2
2	Marcel Desailly	1993 - 2004	116	3
3	Zinedine Zidane	1994 - 2006	108	31
4	Didier Deschamps	1989 - 2000	103	4
5	Laurent Blanc	1989 - 2000	97	16
	Bixente Lizarazu	1992 - 2004	97	2
7	Patrick Vieira*	1997 - Present	94	6
8	Fabien Barthez*	1994 - Present	87
	Sylvain Wiltord*	1999 - Present	87	26
10	Thierry Henry*	1997 - Present	85	36

Members of the 1998 World Cup-winning team are in bold.
* denotes a player still playing or available for selection.

Top France goalscorers

#	Player	Career	Goals (Caps)
1	Michel Platini	1976 - 87	41 (72)
2	Thierry Henry*	1997 - Present	36 (85)
3	David Trezeguet*	1998 - Present	32 (66)
4	Zinedine Zidane	1994 - 2006	31 (108)
5	Just Fontaine	1953 - 60	30 (21)
	Jean-Pierre Papin	1986 - 1995	30 (54)
7	Youri Djorkaeff	1993 - 2002	28 (82)
8	Sylvain Wiltord*	1999 - Present	26 (87)
9	Jean Vincent	1953 - 61	22 (46)
10	Jean Nicolas	1933 - 38	21 (25)

Members of the 1998 World Cup-winning team are in bold.
* denotes a player still playing or available for selection.

Coaches

Before 1955, players were selected by committee.

Albert Batteux (1955-1962)
Henri Guérin (1962-1966)
José Arribas and Jean Snella (1966)
Just Fontaine (1967)
Louis Dugauguez (1967-1968)
Georges Boulogne (1969-1973)
Stefan Kovacs (1973-1975)
Michel Hidalgo (1976-1984)
Henri Michel (1984-1988)
Michel Platini (1988-1992)
Gérard Houllier (1992-1993)
Aimé Jacquet (1993-1998)
Roger Lemerre (1998-2002)
Jacques Santini (2002-2004)
Raymond Domenech (2004-)

Multicultural France

Since the 1990s, the French national team has been held up as an example of the modern multicultural French ideal. The team has found great international sporting success while remaining ethnically and racially diverse, featuring players from the overseas departments or players who are themselves immigrants or the children of immigrants from former French colonial possessions. Zinedine Zidane is Muslim and the child of immigrants from Algeria; Lilian Thuram comes from the overseas department of Guadaloupe; Patrick Vieira immigrated as a child from Senegal.

All this has been met with great frustration by members of the more xenophobic elements of French society, and the team has a long history of confrontation with National Front politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. The "Black, Blanc, Beur" 1998 team won the World Cup seemingly in response to Le Pen's complaints that the team did not look sufficiently "French". In 2002, led by Ghana-born Marcel Desailly, the French team unanimously publicly appealled to the French voting public to reject the presidential candidacy of Le Pen and instead return President Jacques Chirac to office in a landslide. In 2006, the team made yet another run to the World Cup final when once again Le Pen made criticisms that coach Raymond Domenech had selected too many blacks.

External links

European national football teams | French sports teams | Football in France | FIFA World Cup winners

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