- The Chroniques Bleues site (and translation tool of choice) was a big help and highly recommended
For someone born in the 1960s, the idea of a host country winning the World Cup must have felt like the done thing.
England in 1966, West Germany in 1974 and Argentina in 1978 all enjoyed home comforts, with Mexico in 1970 the only exception during that run. However, prior to that trio, you had to go back to the first two editions of the competition – Uruguay and Italy in 1930 and 1934 respectively – for that winning hosts and it has only happened once since 1978.
France had history of going all the way on home soil and, having won the European Championship as hosts in 1984, the FFF and adidas looked to harness some of the spirit of that victory when deciding on a new strip.
First seen in a friendly at home to Spain at the end of January 1998, the kit featured a ribbed white collar and raglan sleeves but it was a good updating of what had gone before.
For its second outing, against Spain, the 1998 World Cup logo featured on the right breast, with the adidas symbol – returning after a few years where only the wordmark appeared – moving to the centre. The friendly away to Russia in March saw the white away socks being used, while another accoutrement was the logo for the King Hassan II Tournament at the end of May.
For the World Cup itself, simple commemorative text was on the right breast, while of course player names were on the back above the numbers – which were the classic adidas keyline-shadow style but with a red outline.
The white change shirt had its first outing in the quarter-final penalty-shootout win over Italy – who wore all-blue – while the semi-final win against Croatia also saw France in a mashup of blue shirts and shorts with red socks – a combination that is now commonplace but which had not been seen prior to 1995.
Goalkeeper Fabien Barthez wore three different shirts during the tournament. For the opening match against South Africa, he – perhaps oddly, given the make-up of the opposition’s shirt – wore a white version of the new ‘Save’ template, with three stripes around the trunk.
That was its only appearance at the competition, though. Against Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Paraguay and Italy, he was in an older black design like what he wore his club Monaco. Then, for the semi-final against Croatia and the 3-0 final win over Brazil, he had a crew-necked black shirt with piping.
For 1998-99, the France design was available as a teamwear style know as ‘Vitesse’ (the French for ‘speed’) but, while the World Cup was over, the variants continued for the national team.
The first game after the World Cup was a friendly against Austria but it wasn’t until the next match, the European Championship qualifier away to Iceland, that a star appeared above the FFF cockerel.
Another trip to Russia was in store after that but, unlike the friendly in the spring, this time the home team opted to wear blue and so France were in a white-white-red-ensemble. The starred blue shirts were finally premiered in the final game of the year, at home to Andorra.
It wasn’t until the friendly away to Northern Ireland in August of 1999 that the white shirts were paired with the blue shorts – the only time for this particular combination – but there was time for one more mashup before the introduction of a new kit for what would prove to be a successful Euro 2000.
France’s U21 side – the espoirs, or ‘hopes’ – had often worn shirts different to the senior designs during the 1980s and 1990s, but this practice had more or less stopped as the millennium approached. However, for a European Championship qualifying play-off away to Italy in November of 1999, red teamwear shorts were worn, presumably to alleviate an overall clash of blue and white.
