E3 1998

[Terina]

The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the second time in the history of the tournament (the first was in 1938), defeating Morocco in the bidding process. It was the ninth time that it was held in Europe. Spanning 32 days, it was the longest World Cup tournament ever held.

Qualification for the finals began in March 1996 and concluded in November 1997. For the first time in the competition, the group stage was expanded from 24 teams to 32, with eight groups of four. 64 matches were played in 10 stadiums in 10 host cities, with the opening match and final staged at the newly built Stade de France in the Parisian commune of Saint-Denis.

France was awarded the 1998 World Cup on 2 July 1992 by the executive committee of FIFA during a general meeting in Zrich, Switzerland. They defeated Morocco by 12 votes to 7.[1][2] Switzerland withdrew, due to being unable to meet FIFA's requirements. This made France the third country to host two World Cups, after Mexico and Italy in 1986 and 1990 respectively. France previously hosted the third edition of the World Cup in 1938. England, who hosted the competition in 1966 and won it, were among the original applicants, but later withdrew their application in favour of an ultimately successful bid to host UEFA Euro 1996.

On 4 June 2015, while co-operating with the FBI and the Swiss authorities, Chuck Blazer confirmed that he and other members of FIFA's executive committee were bribed during the 1998 and 2010 World Cups host selection process. Blazer stated that "we facilitated bribes in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup". Since France won the selection process it was initially thought the bribery came from its bid committee. It eventually transpired that the bribe payment was from the failed Moroccan bid.[4][5][6]

Four nations qualified for the first time: Croatia, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa. The last team to qualify was Iran by virtue of beating Australia in a two-legged tie on 29 November 1997.[9] It marked their first appearance in the finals since 1978, the last time Tunisia also qualified for the tournament. Chile qualified for the first time since 1982, after serving a ban that saw them miss out on the two previous tournaments. Paraguay and Denmark returned for the first time since 1986. Austria, England, Scotland and Yugoslavia returned after missing out on the 1994 tournament, with the Balkan team now appearing under the name of FR Yugoslavia. Among the teams who failed to qualify were two-time winners Uruguay (for the second successive tournament); Portugal (their last absence as of 2022); Sweden, who finished third in 1994; Russia (who failed to qualify for the first time since 1978 after losing to Italy in the play-off round); and the Republic of Ireland, who had qualified for the previous two tournaments.[10] The highest-ranked team not to qualify was the UEFA Euro 1996 runners-up the Czech Republic (ranked 3rd), while the lowest-ranked team that did qualify was Nigeria (ranked 74th).

The choice of stadium locations was drafted from an original list of 14 cities.[15] FIFA and CFO monitored the progress and quality of preparations, culminating in the former providing final checks of the grounds weeks before the tournament commenced. Montpellier was the surprise inclusion from the final list of cities because of its low urban hierarchy in comparison to Strasbourg, who boasted a better hierarchy and success from its local football team, having been taken over by a consortium. Montpellier however was considered ambitious by the selecting panel to host World Cup matches. The local city and regional authorities in particular had invested heavily into football the previous two decades and were able to measure economic effects, in terms of jobs as early as in 1997.[16] Some of the venues used for this tournament were also used for the previous World Cup in France in 1938. The Stade Vlodrome in Marseille, the Stade Municipal in Toulouse, the Gerland in Lyon, the Parc Lescure in Bordeaux and the Parc des Princes in Paris received the honour of hosting World Cup matches once again in 1998 as they had all done in 1938.

10 stadiums were used for the finals; in addition to nine matches being played at the Stade de France (the most used stadium in the tournament), a further six matches took place in Paris Saint-Germain's Parc des Princes, bringing Paris's total matches hosted to 15. France played four of their seven matches in the national stadium; they also played in the country's second and third largest cities, Marseille (hosting 7 total matches) and Lyon (hosting 6 total matches), as well as a Round of 16 knockout match in the northern city of Lens (also hosting 6 total matches). Nantes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Saint-Etienne also hosted 6 matches in total; all of the stadiums used also hosted knockout round matches.

34 referees and 33 assistants officiated in the 1998 World Cup.[20] As a result of the extension to 32 teams in the finals, there was an increase of 10 referees and 11 officials from the 1994 World Cup.[20]

The FIFA Organising Committee announced the eight seeded teams on 3 December 1997. The historic tradition to seed the hosts (France) and holders (Brazil) was upheld; while the remaining six seeds were granted for the other top7-ranked teams, based on their results obtained in the last three FIFA World Cups (ratio 3:2:1, counting in total 60%) and their FIFA World Ranking position in the last month of the past three years (equal ratio, counting in total 40%).[21][22]

For the draw, the 32 teams were allocated into four pots. The eight top-seeded teams were allocated in pot A and would be drawn/selected into the first position of the eight groups playing in the group stage. The remaining 24 unseeded teams were allocated into three pots based on geographical sections, with the: Nine European teams in pot B; four Asian teams and three South American teams in pot C; five African teams and three North American teams in pot D.[23]

The general principle was to draw one team from each pot into the eight groups, although with special combined procedures for pot B and pot C, due to comprising more/less than eight teams - but sixteen teams in total. At the same time, the draw also needed to respect the geographical limitation, that each group could not feature more than one team from each confederation, except for the European teams where the limitation was maximum two per group.[23]

For the first time in history, the draw event took place in a football stadium, with 38,000 spectators and an estimated 1 billion TV viewers. The draw was officiated by FIFA secretary general Sepp Blatter. Teams were drawn by football legends Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto Parreira, George Weah and Raymond Kopa.[24]

Organiser Michel Platini, who later became president of UEFA, admitted in 2018 that the draw for the group stage of the competition had been fixed so that France and Brazil were kept apart until the final, telling France Bleu Sport: "We did a bit of trickery. When we were organising the schedule. We did not spend six years organising the World Cup to not do some little shenanigans".[25]

The statement from Platini referred to the fact that, shortly before the World Cup finals draw took place, the FIFA Organising Committee had met to finalise the draw process. At this meeting, the committee had approved the proposal to assign host nation France to group position C1 and defending champions Brazil to group position A1 ahead of the draw. As the tournament structure was also predetermined so that the winners of Groups A, D, E and H, and the runners-up of Groups B, C, F and G would be kept apart from the group winners of B, C, F and G, and the runners-up of Group A, D, E and H until the final; thus, France and Brazil could avoid meeting each other until the final if both teams finished in the same position in the top two of their respective groups.[26]

In each group, the teams played three matches, one against each of the other teams. Three points were awarded for each win, while a draw was worth one point. After completion of the group stage, the two teams with the most points in each group would advance to the knockout stage, with each group winner facing the runner-up from one of the other groups in the round of 16. This was a new format for the World Cup, following the expansion from 24 teams in 1994. A total of 64 games were played, including the final and a third-place play-off between the losers of the two semi-finals.

As with the preceding tournament, each team's squad for the 1998 World Cup finals consisted of 22 players. Each participating national association had to confirm their final 22-player squad by 1 June 1998.

The knockout stage comprised the 16 teams that advanced from the group stage of the tournament. For each game in the knockout stage, any draw at 90 minutes was followed by 30 minutes of extra time; if scores were still level, there was a penalty shoot-out to determine who progressed to the next round. The Golden goal rule was also used, whereby if a team scored during extra time, they would immediately win the game.

The pre-match build up was dominated by the omission of Brazilian striker Ronaldo from the starting lineup only to be reinstated 45 minutes before kick-off.[34] He managed to create the first open chance for Brazil in the 22nd minute, dribbling past defender Thuram before sending a cross out on the left side that goalkeeper Fabien Barthez struggled to hold onto. France however took the lead after Brazilian defender Roberto Carlos conceded a corner from which Zidane scored via a header. Three minutes before half-time, Zidane scored his second goal of the match, similarly another header from a corner. The tournament hosts went down to ten men in the 68th minute as Marcel Desailly was sent off for a second bookable offence. Brazil reacted to this by making an attacking substitution and although they applied pressure France sealed the win with a third goal: substitute Patrick Vieira set up his club teammate Petit in a counterattack to shoot low past goalkeeper Cludio Taffarel.[35]

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