Today I'm going back 22 years to the year 2000 and the European Championships Group Stage match between the Czech Republic and World Champions France. Euro2000 was hosted jointly by Holland and Belgium and I managed to secure tickets to seven matches in total. At the time we were living in France so the journey to the matches was just a road trip with no flights or ferries required. Happily for a programme collector like myself there was a specific programme issued for each match albeit that much of the content was standard across all issues. I certainly wasn't complaining!
France against the Czech Republic was played at the city-owned Jan Breydel Stadium in Bruges, Belgium, home of two Bruges clubs in Club Brugge and Cercle Brugge. Jan Breydel is regarded as a patriotic hero from the middle ages by the Flemish-speaking nation in Belgium and he is believed to have led uprisings against the French and fought against them at The Battle of the Golden Spurs. Perhaps it was a little ironic that France found themselves playing a match at a stadium named after a man who had annihilated a French Garrison nearby? Irrespective, there were plenty of French fans in evidence amongst the total attendance of 27,243.
France had won the World Cup as the host nation in 1998 and the bulk of that side were still available two years later for Euro2000. It was a real pleasure to see the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henri, Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desailly, Laurent Blanc, Didier Deschamps, Patrick Viera, Emmanuel Petit, Fabien Barthez, Youri Djorkaeff and Christophe Dugarry at a tournament and the French were many people's favourite to win Euro2000 as well.
The game was the second in the Group for each nation. The French had kicked off their tournament with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Denmark whilst the Czechs had opened with a 1-0 loss to hosts Holland in Amsterdam. The Czechs therefore couldn't afford to lose their second game too since that would almost certainly lead to an early elimination from the tournament. So, when the Czechs conceded an early goal to France, scored by Thierry Henri in the 7th minute following a calamitous back-pass, the writing was already on the wall. It was a great game with both sides attacking the other from the very start and there were a number of dubious penalty calls including the one from which the Czechs equalised in the 35th minute. I'm still not convinced that Pavel Nedved was inside the area when he was brought down but the spot kick was awarded and Karel Poborsky stepped up to convert it straight down the middle. For a while it looked like the Czechs might actually spring a surprise but Youri Djorkaef scored France's second on the hour and they then held out against the Czech threat to win the game 2-1 and qualify for the knockout phase with a game to spare.
In the third Group Stage game, the French actually lost 3-2 to hosts Holland in Amsterdam with a somewhat changed lineup because they had already qualified and wanted to rest several players as well as giving game time to others. The already eliminated Czechs finally won a game with a 2-0 victory over wooden spoonists Denmark in their final game. In the knockout phase, France went on to beat Spain in the Quarter-Finals and Portugal after extra time in the Semi-Finals before winning the Final 2-1 with a Golden Goal against Italy. The French had been losing 1-0 in that Final going into injury time but refused to give up and got their just reward. It was a golden French generation indeed!
CRB Match No. 1184
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