All for one and four for all

Tomorrow night the French approach heaven. The host nation has warmed slowly to its own World Cup, holding back the emotions at first lest their team be humiliated in their yard. Only after reaching the final on Wednesday night did the pressure rush from the valve.

At last they stormed the ChampsElysees, sending Mexican waves rolling up and down its length. Allez Les Bleus.

The team might have failed and France was braced for that, prepared not to flinch when it happened but to carry on with disdain. Even if their team didn't fail, France suspected that success would not be built on swagger and dash but on defiance and defence. No remembrance of times past. No Juste Fontaine. No Platini.

Since the days of Papin and Cantona the French haven't possessed a serious front line. Instead, with reluctant pragmatism, they have welded together one of the best defences in the world. Tomorrow the best defence in the competition play the most potent attack. Intriguing.

The French have come to appreciate the monument of their parsimony, this architectural creation of Aime Jacquet's devoted to security. The hero of the team, the idol of France, has been the defence.

"All the great teams have built from the back anyway," says Jacquet, "look at Beckenbauer."

Through the World Cup they have conceded just two goals. Laurent Blanc, the fallen hero of that back line, summed it up earlier in the tournament when he noted with the cheeriness of Porthos that "in our defence we are all for one, four for one".

The impregnability of the French defence, described by the French press as the "wall of steel which dreams of gold", is scarcely an accident. When Jacquet surveyed his resources after Euro '96 he saw no other way forward. Forwards weren't flowering. Defence was still his strongest hand. He takes his team to the gates of paradise tomorrow knowing that his plan has worked. Besides the extraordinary back four, Jacquet has planted Petit and Deschamps in front of them, tackling hard and working feverishly. It was all planned and worked out by blueprint, model and empirical test.

The French, unthinkable now, even experimented with a threeman defence in friendlies against Spain and Norway.

The quartet of Thuram, Blanc, Desailly and Lizarazu have played together 10 times now. A long injury to Lizarazu has limited their get-togethers, but the first competitive goal they conceded was on Wednesday night in Paris and it was sublime. If it is going to rain on your parade, then there might as well be sheet lightning as well. Suker's goal was just that. The sort of stroke of genius for which defenders grant themselves absolution. Particularly if the back four concerned has scored four goals in the tournament so far.

Jacquet knew it would be this way, that the church he was building would be celebrated for its foundations rather than its spires. Lizarazu was a case in point. He replaced Eric di Meco in the left back position only after much heart searching from Jacquet.

"Di Meco was a fine player, a natural leader, a really good man, one of those players whom I really appreciated. But I discovered that I had an obligation to the system to play Lizarazu there instead of him. He fitted the configuration, he attacked more. It was a terrible decision to have to make."

Jacquet built on a solid central axis and mobile flanks. The full backs have to shuttle up and down incessantly, like quasi wing backs. Thuram was handpicked for the other side. Square peg, round hole business it seemed.

Thuram's two goals against Croatia stamped France's visa for the final, and if they looked like the work of a natural full-back, that is a tribute to the intelligence of a player who has learned the trade at international level, having being voted best foreigner in Serie A in his first season with Parma, where he plays as a centre half.

Jacquet had been nudging Thuram towards the right full back spot for some time and Thuram had been replying with superlative displays in Italy. Finally, having decided for once and for all that Blanc and Desailly would be his centre-half pairing, Jacquet went to Thuram and spoke softly with a big stick. "I told him it was right-back or nothing."

So the right-back Thuram scored his first international goals on Wednesday night and was chaired off the field. The goals against Croatia may have been the headline fodder, but Thuram's displays right through the competition have been superlative, and, if defenders ever won such baubles, he would be a strong contender for player of the tournament. Jacquet can permit himself a smile.

"I have got used to playing right back," says Thuram. "It was a chance to play in the World Cup. Anyway, when I look at the form of Marcel, I can't argue that I should be one of the centre-halves."

Ah, Marcel. Desailly has been superb in this World Cup.

Again his excellence is partly due to Jacquet's perseverance. In Italy, at the declining AC Milan, they like to use him as a midfielder. Good defenders grow like bunches of grapes in Serie A and, like Paul McGrath, Desailly has the skills to survive as a top-level midfielder.

Jacquet thought this a luxury which France couldn't afford, however, and decided that Desailly would do what he does best when he wears a French jersey. He would play centre-half. Not just that, but he would play behind Deschamps, the midfielder who has been his friend, confidante, room-mate and adviser since they were kids together at Nantes. Then Jacquet decided to iron the frills out of Desailly's game for the duration of the World Cup.

It has been said of Desailly's performances that he has played like a debutant during the World Cup. They mean it as the highest praise.

"Marcel has played with application and concentration," says captain Deschamps. "He has eliminated every thing from his game that he is not certain of succeeding in, he has developed this `no mistake' technique. I think it has brought him to the summit of his powers."

Desailly is a curiously wellrounded character who adapts quickly to circumstance. Born in Ghana, his mother married a French civil servant and moved to Nantes when Desailly was four.

His first language was English, which he speaks as comfortably as he speaks French and Italian. His elder half brother, an equally-talented player, was killed in a car crash 14 years ago and he has often spoke of Deschamps as having filled the loss.

Desailly, meanwhile, has journeyed backwards into his past, holidaying in Ghana every year and re-acquainting himself with his natural father.

Tomorrow he adapts again, playing with his partner at Chelsea for next season, Frank Lebouef. Laurent Blanc, the unfortunate victim of Slaven Bilic's coup de theatre, has been less eyecatching than Desailly during the campaign, but his solidity has been impressive and he saved French bacon with his golden goal against Paraguay in the second round.

His absence, confirmed by the announcement of a two-match ban, showcases the emptyheadedness of FIFA's voluble new president, Sepp Blatter, who announced with alarming candour on the day of the Holland-Brazil semi-final that if referees had been doing their job, Dennis Bergkamp wouldn't have been playing that night.

Right or wrong, it was a strange thing to say about a star player on the day of his biggest ever game. It was the umpteenth in a series of pronouncements by Blatter on the subject of refereeing at the tournament. The next night, Blanc felt the chill of the breeze which began as mere hot air from the mouth of a blazer and got sent off by an eager-to-please referee.

Blanc was the final piece in Jacquet's jigsaw. The team suffered a collective nightmare against Bulgaria a few years ago, after which Jacquet started thinking about reconstructing his entire defence, and Blanc, stung by the hornets in the French media, packed in international football.

Jacquet came to see Blanc in St Etienne where he was then playing and unfolded his plan for him. No more Mr Libero. Just be part of an efficient zonal defence. You'll be retired a long time. Try it. You have the brain for it. Blanc bought it.

There have been worries. Desailly's form was a casualty of AC Milan's lack of same. Lizarazu had a lengthy injury and was upset by a failed transfer to Atletico Bilbao (he has been re-born lately with Bayern Munich). Blanc wandered from St Etienne to Auxerre to a difficult time with Barcelona and back to France with Marseille in successive seasons. Only Thuram developed incessantly.

As a unit, the French have defended heroically, appropriating the ball again and again and launching their blunt attacks. The nation has grown used to the fact that France needs more chances than most teams in order to score a goal, they have come to love the grand defiance of their defence, the perverse beauty of stoically absorbed pressure and the wearing down of the opposition with enthusiasm and passion.

The front line has been an audition queue of aspirants and hopefuls. Guivarc'h's failure has been the most spectacular, Henry is yesterday's idol and Trezeguet remains little more than a puff of promise. The heroes are the men of iron.

It's not beautiful, but it's football, this team built from the bottom and not yet finished at the top.