The No. 1 Unofficial World Cup Website

Affiliated to FIFA: 1904

FIFA Ranking: 1 

WC Best: Winners 1998

The former Sedan, Nantes, Nancy and Lens midfielder earned six French caps between 1968 and 1971, but before becoming assistant to Aime Jacquet in time for the 1998 World Cup, his managerial CV was somewhat unspectacular.
 

Two spells in charge of medium-sized clubs Lens and Red Star, and spells at Strasbourg, Paris FC and Tunisian club Esperance preceded eleven years in charge of the French military team. Admittedly, Lemerre guided the soldiers to 1995 Military World Cup success, but the sixty-year old hardly had an international reputation to speak of when the World Cup winners appointed him in July 1998.

He’s certainly make his mark on the game since, however, guiding Les Bleus to European Championship success in 2000.

But to suggest they’ve got it in the bag already would be foolish. Fabien Barthez endured a seriously dodgy spell earlier this season, the OPTA stats do suggest Thierry Henry doesn’t score every time, and the key players Zidane and Vieira have been known to lose it if things get heated in the middle of the park.

But Roger Lemerre has cultivated an ever-more-impressive strength in depth - even if some of the big names don’t live up to their superstar billing, their deputies are now just as able.

They toiled when Zidane was suspended against Paraguay in France ’98 - but now Parma’s Johan Micoud could step in to provide some much-needed inspiration. The competition for places up front means that everyone will be kept on their toes. Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet head the list, but try telling that to Sylvain Wiltord, Christophe Dugarry, Djibril Cisse and even Bolton's Youri Djorkaeff.

Defensively, much depends on whether Marcel Desailly has one more world-class tournament in him. With Laurent Blanc now consigned to the history books, Manchester United club-mate Mikael Silvestre may well feature at centre-back, unless Frank Leboeuf - now at Marseilles - gets the nod. Even so, full-backs Lilian Thuram and Bixente Lizarazu are established world-class performers who very, very rarely give anything away.

But the sands of time are starting to catch up with Europe’s golden boys. The average age of the team that started the Euro 2000 final will be 31 when this summer’s final comes around - with only Henry and Vieira the spritelier side of 30. Zinedine Zidane has already announced that this will be his last World Cup - and the world’s most expensive player won't be the only one determined to go out with a bang.

Sometimes you can predict what he’s going to do and there’s absolutely nothing that can be done to stop him. Sometimes you can’t predict what he’s going to do next - in which case you definitely can’t stop him.

He can score free-kicks, one-on-ones, and even sensational long range volleys where he flicks the ball up first.

But sometimes he can have an off-day. He even ran out of bewildered facial expressions in the 2001 FA Cup Final - such was the level of disbelief at his profligacy in front of goal.

An on-song Thierry Henry will dance through defences all night long and lead his country towards a second successive World Cup trophy. An off-colour Henry will look lost and confused for about 20 minutes until another member of Les Bleus’ world-class strikeforce comes on to save him from further embarrassment.