Few players in football history can boast of having the kind of summer that Emmanuel Petit enjoyed in 1998.
The midfielder’s domestic campaign ended with a Premier League and FA Cup double, as Petit’s decision to part ways with reigning Ligue 1 champions Monaco and reunite with his old boss Arsene Wenger at Arsenal was quickly vindicated.
That was the perfect way to prepare for a World Cup on home soil, with Petit installed in the heart of the Les Bleus midfield, handing him the chance to fulfil a childhood dream.
What Petit said before his World Cup final goal
Petit played in all bar one of France’s matches on the way to the final in Paris that summer, netting his maiden international goal in the group stage win over Denmark, but more was to come in the final against Brazil when he managed a goal and an assist.
“As a child, even before France had been chosen to host, I wrote that we would one day win the World Cup, at home, 2-0 against Brazil in the final,” he tells FourFourTwo, speaking in association with BetVictor.
“We won 3-0 and I scored the third to break my own dream! Marcel Desailly received a red card at 2-0, so I dropped in at centre-back with Frank Leboeuf.
“With five minutes left, the noise was intense, and I yelled at him that my dream came true. He said, ‘What?! Concentrate on the game!’
“Then I scored from Patrick Vieira’s pass – the Daily Mirror front page was us and the headline: ‘Arsenal win the World Cup’. We were so proud of that.”
Petit and Vieira’s dual club and country partnership would last another two years, with the former moving on from Arsenal in the summer of 2000, when France would follow up their World Cup success by winning the European Championship.
Barcelona was Petit’s next port of call when he and Marc Overmars headed to the Camp Nou in a joint £7million move, but injuries restricted him to just 23 La Liga appearances and he would return to the Premier League with Chelsea, the final stop of his career. FourFourTwo would go on to rank him at no. 95 in their list of the 100 greatest-ever Premier League players.
Petit would win 63 France caps during his 13-year international career, scoring six times, none bigger than that memorable goal against Brazil at the Stade de France in 1998.
