France 98

The best World Cup of my lifetime, which just so happened to be my first.

There is a theory that the World Cup closest to your Tenth Birthday is often your favourite as you are at an age when you not only love football.

But you are aware enough to understand just how special a World Cup truly is, the best players in the world all playing in one tournament.

Euro 96 was my first tournament to watch, but this made me even more excited. By the time the Summer of 98 rolled around, the Premier League had started to grow into the Giant that it is today.

Foreign players were now commonplace in England and with Gazzetta Football Italia on Channel 4 we knew who some of the best players in the world were as they were in either England or Italy.

In England at that time, we were just coming to the end of “Cool Britania” where football was feeding the culture around it and vice versa.

So, there was a lot of hype around the tournament and of course England had gone through after that infamous night in Rome where England drew with Italy to qualify for France.

There was even more hype for me when the Official game for France 98 came out on PlayStation One, with the intro to it being the Official Mascot Footix running through the streets of France soundtracked by Chumbawamba’s hit song Tubthumping.

This as well as Panini Sticker book albums really enhanced the buildup to the tournament for me as I was too young for USA 94. Euro 96 was my first tournament and that certainly did make you feel like football was the best thing in the world.

So, when you knew there was something even bigger coming over the horizon, well you just knew it was going to be worth waiting for.

From the first game seeing the reigning Champions Brazil beat Scotland and seeing the best player in the world Ronaldo in the iconic yellow jersey for the Seleção was magic.

The two other sides I really wanted to watch were the hosts France and the Netherlands as I knew most of the players from Euro 96 and the Premier League.

They were both superb in the group stages and qualified with minimum fuss but just like my dad I still to this day have a soft spot for the Azzuri, Football in Italy was like football from another planet.

The same feeling musicians got seeing David Bowie perform on Top of the Pops; it was still music but nothing like you had ever seen before almost like from another Galaxy.

Argentina was a bit of a novelty for me as Brazil were the team on every advert for Nike and you knew all their superstars, but this was my first introduction to them, and they did not disappoint.

I mean come on, Juan Sebastian Veron, Ariel Ortega, Gabriel Batistuta and many other greats you knew they were serious

As for England they started well winning against Tunisia, I remember Paul Scholes scoring a great goal as we all watched it in the school hall on a TV, they wheeled in.

Also how can anyone forget that the game was on at 13:30 on a Monday, we were greeted to the one and only Des Lynam opening the BBC Coverage with the immortal line “Shouldn’t you be at work”.

Another amazing thing was being able to watch football instead of doing schoolwork and if you get told this is more important than school then you know it’s big.

England were supposed to win that group, but nobody told Romania that who won the group and sent England into second place and a date with Argentina in the knockout rounds.

This also inadvertently began the infamous ITV curse for England in Tournaments, England who have a better record when games are broadcast on BBC than ITV ever since.

The BBC got first pick of the games as they rotate with ITV for each tournament, then they thought England would win the group and set up a clash in Bordeaux with Croatia.

ITV would get a clash between Argentina and Colombia (The other favorite in England’s group to go through) but again nobody told Romania.

So instead, the BBC got the early game of the day Romania vs Croatia and ITV got the big one in England vs Argentina.

As a 9-year-old you do not understand the historical significance of the Falklands War or the Hand of God, but you still knew it was going to be a huge game.

I mean it was 2-1 England after 16 minutes, Michael Owen scoring one of England’s great goals of the World Cup, but a quick free kick routine catches them out before half time.

Now stop me if you have heard this one before, but England go out on penalties, first Euro 96 then this I thought they were unlucky, this kind of thing would not happen again, but boy was I wrong on that.

There were no real surprises in the Round of 16 so onto the quarter finals, France knocked out a good Italy team on penalties to go through.

This was the only game that I thought was a little dull, not much incident but lots of tension the closer it got to the end of extra time and penalties.

Brazil beat Denmark in a 3-2 thriller that as a young fan you think all World Cups are like this, a lesson I learned was sadly not the case the older I got.

The Next game was the best Quarterfinal as the Holland beat Argentina, the players on display in this game were unreal and I remember watching Dennis Bergkamp pull down a long ball from Frank de Boer kill it with one touch then beat the defender with second and score with the third in the 90th minute.

Barry Davies’ commentary for that goal will stay with me for a long time; he captured that goal beautifully, I remember not having any rooting interest for either side but still celebrating that goal like it was for my own side.

Then the shock of the round in Croatia beating Germany 3-0, now even when you are young you still get that Germany are this huge juggernaut that always goes through competitions and gets the job done.

In hindsight this was a team on its way down and Croatia had been good at Euro 96 as well as in this tournament so it should have been no surprise.

I loved watching that side as they seemed the underdog to the established big nations at the tournament, so to see them really stick it to Germany was a beautiful thing and in that beautiful Croatian kit is the Cherry on the cake.

The final four was Brazil, Holland, France, and Croatia, on reflection that was probably right.

As you had the three best sides in the world at the time and Croatia who had been exceptionally good throughout the tournament.

In the first Semi-Final Brazil and Holland played out a 1-1 draw with Patrick Kluivert scoring near the end to take it to extra time, then the dreaded penalty shootout. Philip Cocu and Ronald de Boer missed theirs and Brazil scored all theirs to send them through to their second consecutive final.

That Dutch side from around 96-02 really should have gone on to do a lot more in tournaments as they arguably had the best team and depth in the world but infighting and penalty shootouts just seemed to be their downfall each time.

Then the Hosts France took on the underdog in Croatia, Davor Suker struck first but two goals from an unlikely source in Lillian Thuram put the hosts into the final. He only ever scored two goals for France and what a game to do it in.

A sad end for Croatia but they did finish third beat Holland in the 3rd/4th place game and Suker won the Golden Boot so a nation that a few years back emerged from a state of War had its Sporting moment in the sun.

So on to the main event, the Hosts taking on Brazil but there was controversy just before the game as the best player in the world Ronaldo was left off the team sheet. This caused chaos as nobody knew why, then just before the game he was back in the starting line-up.

So, what happened? Many theories were ranging from he was dropped to him having a seizure and Nike pressuring the Brazilian National team for him to play such was their sponsorship deal at the time. In recent years it is true he had a seizure on the day of the game and in hindsight he should not have played but this match was so big he had to.

Zinedine Zidane had been a player on the cusp of greatness, and he took his chance on the biggest stage by scoring two headers in the first half to help France win 3-0.

Brazil seemed nowhere near what they should be but with their Talisman not fully fit they could do nothing but watch as France cruised to a win.

Looking back on this tournament and remembering just how good it really was, this was in a short golden era from 98-02 where some of the best players and teams were so good making for some amazing matchups.

My memories of mostly playing football in-between games and pretending I was Ronaldo or Zidane or Batistuta in a glorious albeit brief English Summer are special to me.

The First World Cup is something that says with you; nostalgia can be something that can taint your memory of how it really was.

But for me at least the memories are of an innocent time in my life when I fell in love with the game, the older me is more cynical and as i look back to that summer and see moments from it then i feel something as warm as that French Summer sun.

So that is why I prefer to look back and for this tournament there are some joyous moments from Iran beating the USA, the context of this is quite ironic given current events.

Jamaica added a great energy to an already colourful and vibrant tournament. Most memorable moments come from teams who are not going to win the whole thing but more just getting there. Having a chance to show what they can do on the biggest stage is the whole point, it’s a carnival of football and joy for everyone.

On the whole France 98 was a superb tournament, played out in a glorious French summer with some of the best stars on the planet, a few shocks sprinkled in with some outrageous skills and goals.

As a young football fan this was heaven, I hope future generations can experience moments like this and have their own memories to look back on as fondly as I do, but I fear that time may be over.