France at the World Cup
France were one of the 13 teams in the inaugural World Cup in 1930. Their best results are wins in 1998 and 2018.
France controversially qualified for the 2010 tournament with the assistance of a handball by Thierry Henry, and then more controversially were knocked out in the first stage of the tournament.
France qualified again in 2014 and made it to the quarter-finals. In 2018, they won the tournament for the second time 4-2 in a high-scoring match against Croatia. In 2022 France lost the final in a penalty shootout with Argentina.
Trivia
- France was involved in the first-ever World Cup match played against Mexico, with France winning 4-1. The match was played in Montevideo, Uruguay on 13 July 1930.
- France's captain in the first World Cup match, Alex Villaplane, was killed fifteen years later for alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Villaplane was shot dead by French resistance fighters in July 1945.
- The first player to be replaced in World Cup finals due to injury was French goalkeeper Alex Thepot. The goalkeeper was kicked by a Mexican player in the jaw in the opening match of the 1930 World Cup. He was replaced by midfielder Augustin Chantrel.
- The record for the most goals at a World Cup is 13 by Frenchman Just Fontaine in 1958, scored in six games.
- A rooster, the symbol of the French team, was thrown onto the field by a fan during the match between France and Canada on 1 June, 1986. The rooster was dead when the referee removed it off the pitch. France won the match 1-0.
- Zinedine Zidane became the first French player to be sent off in World Cup finals in the First Round match against Saudi Arabia on 18 June 1998. France had kept a clean sheet for 68 years until France 98!
- France played off against Italy in the 2006 final, with man of the tournament, Zinedine Zidane, being red carded for a bizarre incident where he head butted the opposition player.
- France's winning coach in 2018, Didier Deschamps, was also captain of the winning 1998 side, and became the third man to win the World Cup as a player and a coach after Brazil's Mario Zagallo and Germany's Franz Beckenbauer.
Related Pages
- About the women's team from France at the FIFA Women's World Cup
- Profile of Zinedine Zidane
- List of all countries who have participated in the World Cup
- France at the UEFA Euros
- About Sport in France
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