The 1998 World Cup has less than a minute to be played, Brazil are 2-0 down and have a corner against France. The French clear and the ball falls to Patrick Viera, then in almost the same motion, Emmanuel Petit who ahd been playing as a centre Back starts his run from deep into the French half.
Petit continues his run and Vieria plays him the perfect ball, leaves him one on one with Brazil’s goal keeper. Petit shoots and the ball is in the back of the net, in his own word ‘he is freed’.
I was a goal that maybe did not change much as France were already winning, and comforbtably. But for Petit it meant the World for him. Ten years earlier, he had lost his brother Olivier, who collapsed on the pitch while playing for his club Arques and died with a blood clot on the brain aged only 20.
Reflecting on the goal and the feeling it brought him Petit says;
”I think about my brother every day, but especially after that final. I remember doing an interview after the game and I said, ‘I feel free now’.
“When I lost my brother, I felt so angry about what had happened. I thought to myself that the reason I was able to become a professional footballer was because my brother died on the pitch, like it was a sacrifice.But I swore to myself that I’d try everything I could to make my family proud and to prove that football was not responsible for that, football can also bring happiness. I was on a mission and the World Cup in France was the target.
“And after we won it, I thought to myself, ‘You’ve done a good job, your family is proud of you and the memory of your brother is safe’.”
Petit’s account is testament that though only just a game, football can change lives in more ways than with the excitment we all derive from it, it is a way of life optimised by gracing the biggest stages of them all…the FIFA World Cup.