Football World Cup 2002 / France

This article covers the French national team at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.

qualification

As the reigning world champion, France qualified directly for the finals.

French contingent

No.	Surname	Club before the start of the World Cup	birthday	Games	Gates
goalkeeper
1	Ulrich Ramé	Girondins Bordeaux	09/19/1972	0	0	0	0	0
16	Fabien Barthez	Manchester United	06/28/1971	3	0	0	0	0
23	Grégory Coupet	Olympique Lyon	December 31, 1972	0	0	0	0	0
Defender
2	Vincent Candela	AS Roma	October 24, 1973	2	0	0	0	0
3	Bixente Lizarazu	FC Bayern Munich	December 9, 1969	3	0	0	0	0
5	Philippe Christanval	FC Barcelona	08/31/1978	0	0	0	0	0
8th	Marcel Desailly	Chelsea FC	07.09.1968	3	0	0	0	0
13	Mikaël Silvestre	Manchester United	08/09/1977	0	0	0	0	0
15th	Lilian Thuram	Juventus Turin	01/01/1972	3	0	0	0	0
18th	Frank Lebœuf	Olympique Marseille	01/22/1968	2	0	0	0	0
19th	Willy Sagnol	FC Bayern Munich	03/18/1977	0	0	0	0	0
midfield player
4th	Patrick Vieira	Arsenal FC	06/23/1976	3	0	0	0	0
6th	Youri Djorkaeff	Bolton Wanderers	03/09/1968	2	0	0	0	0
7th	Claude Makélélé	real Madrid	02/18/1973	1	0	0	0	0
10	Zinedine Zidane	real Madrid	06/23/1972	1	0	0	0	0
14th	Alain Boghossian	AC Parma	October 27, 1970	0	0	0	0	0
17th	Emmanuel Petit	Chelsea FC	09/22/1970	2	0	2	0	0
22nd	Johan Micoud	AC Parma	07/24/1973	2	0	0	0	0
striker
9	Djibril Cissé	AJ Auxerre	08/12/1981	3	0	0	0	0
11	Sylvain Wiltord	Arsenal FC	05/10/1974	3	0	0	0	0
12	Thierry Henry	Arsenal FC	08/17/1977	2	0	0	0	1
20th	David Trezeguet	Juventus Turin	10/15/1977	3	0	0	0	0
21st	Christophe Dugarry	Girondins Bordeaux	March 24, 1972	3	0	1	0	0
Trainer
	Roger Lemerre		06/18/1941

Preliminary round

rank	country	Gates	Points
1	Denmark	5: 2	7th
2	Senegal	5: 4	5
3	Uruguay	4: 5	2
4th	France	0: 3	1

France	-	Senegal		0: 1 (0: 1)
France	-	Uruguay		0-0
Denmark	-	France		2: 0 (1: 0)

As the reigning world champion, France opened the final round of the World Cup. Opponent was the blatant outsider Senegal . The French played a bit tense without Zinédine Zidane , but had some good scoring chances. But Senegal scored the goal of the day and thus the first of the tournament. The world championship had its first sensation.

A week later the second game was against Uruguay . Without Zidane again. In the top-class storm, however, the current top scorer from three European leagues played, above all superstar Thierry Henry , who was sent off after 25 minutes after a serious foul. Again, France failed to score. The game ended 0-0.

In the last game of the preliminary round, the Equipe Tricolore had to defeat Denmark by at least two goals in order to reach the round of 16. A quite solvable task, especially since Zidane was fit again. The aged team again created great opportunities - including several hits on the post and crossbar - but failed to score for the third time in a row. Denmark ultimately won 2-0. The reigning world champion was eliminated as bottom of the table.