32 teams competed in the 16th World
Cup -- better known as France 98 -- offering fans a total of 64 matches, at reasonable
viewing times for the European television audience.
1800-worldcup.com have links to all the games in the France 98 archives.
Croatia, appearing in their first World
Cup Finals tournament as an independent nation, were the surprise of the competition;
beating a tired-out Germany team in the quarter-finals, before
losing out narrowly to soon to be World Champions France, in the
semi-finals.
For their efforts, Croatia picked up the wooden spoon for third place and Davor Suker the Golden boot; as the
tournament's leading scorer, with six goals.
Revelation of the tournament was young Michael Owen, who scored a
stunning solo goal against Argentina in the second round.
David Beckham let the England side down by needlessly getting
sent off at the start of the second-half, with the game at (2:2). Ten-man England held on
gallantly and Sol Campbell even scored what might have been England's winner (heading in
from a corner) had Alan 'Windmill' Shearer not elbowed the Argentine goalkeeper in the
face as the ball came over.
But the headlines belonged to France, the
only team to win all of their games; three of them with only ten men (Zinedine Zidane was
sent off against Saudi Arabia, Laurent Blanc against Croatia and Marcel Desailly in the final, against Brazil).
France became the 6th nation to win the World Cup on home soil; having
failed at their previous attempt, in France 1938.
Opening up the World Cup Finals tournament to 32 teams, with eight
groups of four competing in the first round group stage, meant a lot more goals in the
tournament; 171 goals were scored.
It also meant that only the top two teams, in each group, would move
on to the last 16; no more room for a third-placed
houdini act in the opening round.
