Guy Stephan: "A stunning finale"

Working as an assistant with René Girard and coach Roger Lemerre, Guy Stéphan returns to Euro 2000, and his first title and first experience with Les Bleus.

"How was your first experience with the National Team?
I arrived at the end of 1999 as an assistant, to work alongside René Girard who had been taken on as an assistant after the 1998 World Cup. First, I observed, watched how the players trained and operated. It all happened so quickly, as we needed to be ready for the month of preparation before the Euro. It was necessary to understand their codes as the qualifications had been exceedingly difficult and extremely tight. We forget a little bit of that today, but we had finished one point ahead of Ukraine and two ahead of Russia, and only the first of that group qualified. It had been a complicated victory in Andorra with only five minutes to go, Franck Lebœuf received a penalty 0-1, to give us back those three essential points. Maybe this was the road to the final phase, where we won the cup games on the wire.

How do you prepare a group of world champions?
It was a very uniform group, highly complementary, with their own codes, with some extremely experienced players and some younger ones, many of whom had won the World Cup and had already lived that experience. It was not necessary to change their habits overnight. Roger [Lemerre] had experienced the 1998 adventure with them as assistant to Aimé Jacquet and knew how they worked. He was intelligent and knew how to assist them while maintaining control and making strong decisions when they needed to be taken.

This, from the first round, leaving the "cadres" at rest for the third match?
After the first two matches, we our two wins were enough to qualify. For the third, Roger wanted to rotate and line up those who had played little until then. It was a good match; we succumbed against a nice team from the Netherlands. With a  (3-2), we did not have to change our base camp, where we were comfortable. In any case, the team was ready for the cup matches.

Spain is now in the quarterfinals...
Yes, with Raul's missed penalty at the last minute. We will never know what would have happened if he had taken it. It was a strong team, Mendieta had equalised after Zinédine Zidane and Youri Djorkaeff scored before half-time, to win this remarkably close match (1-2).

On to the next against Portugal...
That famous "golden goal" three minutes before the end of extra time, scored on a penalty by Zidane (1-2). Everyone saw Abel Xavier's hand, which was justified and which the referee was correct to whistle. We were leading, which is a little bit different from what we experienced in 2018, not wanting to compare the two eras. In 2000, we were leading for more than 30 minutes in the semi-finals and not far from forty minutes in the final, whereas in 2018 it was only nine minutes through the entire competition. And at the final, European champion... This proves that the 2000 team had an enormous strength of character.

How did the staff intervene at such key moments?
Before each match, I especially remember that Roger would ask the technical staff to put on paper the team composition judged to be the best. He would collect the papers like at school and before revealing the list to the players, he would call us to give us the team that was going to play. That was the way he worked, which I have not seen since.

And did you get good grades?
I do not know, and I would like to get those papers back, which he kept. Otherwise, for the final, he had asked me to sit in the stands for the first half, to have a slightly more aerial view, and to come back to the bench for the second. This first half had not been very good against the Italians, we had a hard time throughout the entire match but the final was stunning, with Roger's exceptional coaching, which I don't remember being emphasized at the time. It is rare to bring in three players who are so involved in the victory. If a player enters, scores that is called "winning coaching". But Sylvain Wiltord, David Trezeguet and Robert Pirès were directly involved in scoring the two goals that led to the victory.

With a choice to take out Lizarazu for the benefit of Pirès did you consider that audacious?
We discussed it on the bench, but he made the decision. His idea was obvious.  Bring a plus on the offensive plan, because we were leading. But he also wanted to work the width more, stretch their defence, take advantage of Robert's quality dribbling and disturb the Italians, who we could already see arm in arm, arm in arm, ten meters away from us already celebrating their victoy. But we equalized at the 94th with a last gasp goal from Wiltord, then a stunning goal from Trezeguet and there the Italians were cooked.

You felt it immediately?
Yes. And not just overtaken but destroyed. They had the cup in their hand and suddenly it was gone. They had let go psychologically, which is rare for Italians.

What were the characteristics of these blues?
The team defended well, with so many experienced players: Fabien Barthez, Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly, Lilian Thuram, Bixente Lizarazu, Djorkaeff, Zidane... and Didier [Deschamps], obviously, the real leader of the team, Zizou being the technical leader. They had made a lot of progress and were better than in 1998. Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet were two years older... David did not play much during this Euro but his golden goal, in more ways than one, will be remembered forever. He won the cup highlighted by the magnificent action of Pirès, the pass, cutting the ball back for David to receive it. He was superbly balanced and had hip suppleness and good contact surface to frame the left foot, whereas often these balls go in the stands or extremely high in the sky. And everyone was ecstatic!

If there was only one image to remember from this Euro?
The action and purpose of Trezeguet, for a stunning finale."