France
FRANCE
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Team Profile
The France national football team represents the nation of France in international football. It is fielded by the French Football Federation and competes as a member of UEFA. France and have won the three largest international men’s football titles organized by FIFA: the World Cup, the Confederations Cup, and the Olympic Tournament. They have won the World Cup in 2008, the Confederations Cup in 2001 and 2003, and won Olympic Gold in the 1984 US Olympics in Los Angeles. This is a huge feat to accomplish as only Argentina as the only other national football team to have accomplished this.
Despite their international success, France has always been a team of inconsistency in terms of success. As with most teams, their success is highly dependent upon the emergence of talented players, which seem to come only so often with France. For example, when France first took on the world stage at Sweden 1958, Raymond Kopa and Just Fontaine, who to this day holds the goalscoring record for a single World Cup finals, were the driving forces for France. Shortly after their retirement, the France team went on a long drought with international success until the 1980s when they captured their first major international title at the European Championships in 1982, and then going on to win the Olympic Gold just two years later. The retirement of several members of this exceptional generation marked the end of a cycle, and although exciting talents such as Jean-Pierre Papin and Eric Cantona were coming through, France’s international influence began to decline once again.
In the second half of the 90s, a new talent emerges as the face of France football, Zinedine Zidane. Coach Aime Jacquet used UEFA Euro 1996 in England as the springboard for a new breed of gifted players with characters to match, including Youri Djorkaeff, Laurent Blanc, Lilian Thuram, Didier Deschamps, Marcel Desailly, Fabien Barthez, Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet. This squad took the France national football team to the greatest prize in all of international soccer by winning the World Cup in 1998 by defeating Brazil 3-0 in the finals.
France came close to a second World Cup victory in World Cup Germany 2006 when they reached the finals, only to lose to Italy on penalties.
World Cup 2010 South Africa will be the 13th World Cup appearance by the French. They defeated the Republic of Ireland 2-1 in the playoff round to reach South Africa 2010.
UEFA Group Stage Standings
| Team | Wins | Draws | Losses | Goals For | Goals Agst | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spain (Q) | 10 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 5 | 30 |
| England (Q) | 9 | 0 | 1 | 34 | 6 | 27 |
| Germany (Q) | 8 | 2 | 0 | 26 | 5 | 26 |
| Netherlands (Q) | 8 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 2 | 24 |
| Italy (Q) | 7 | 3 | 0 | 18 | 7 | 24 |
| Serbia (Q) | 7 | 1 | 2 | 22 | 8 | 22 |
| Slovakia (Q) | 7 | 1 | 2 | 22 | 10 | 22 |
| Denmark (Q) | 6 | 3 | 1 | 16 | 5 | 21 |
| Switzerland (Q) | 6 | 3 | 1 | 18 | 8 | 21 |
| France (Q) | 6 | 3 | 1 | 18 | 9 | 21 |
| Greece (Q) | 6 | 2 | 2 | 20 | 10 | 20 |
Official Site: http://www.fff.fr
