From Pelé to Henry, via THAT Ronaldo seizure: Every Brazil vs France matchup at the World Cup

Seventy-seven days out from a tournament in which it is hosting seven games, Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium gets a dry run on Thursday, staging a heavyweight bout that could be a World Cup final. Indeed, it has been a World Cup final.

At the home of the Patriots, the Super Bowl’s joint-most decorated team, international soccer’s outright most decorated team faces one of just five other sides to have won multiple World Cups. Brazil, holders of a record five global titles, take on two-time champions France, in the teams’ first clash in over a decade. The Seleção and Les Bleus have not met since March 2015, when goals by Oscar, Neymar and Luis Gustavo gave the Brazilians a 3-1 friendly victory in Paris. In competitive play, the nations have not faced off since the 2006 World Cup.

Ranked at No. 3 and No. 5 in the world, respectively, France and Brazil are both, inevitably, listed among the bookmakers’ frontrunners to win this summer’s World Cup, which is to be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In their final tournament under Didier Deschamps - who is expected to be replaced by Zinédine Zidane - the French are currently 8/1 joint-third favorites, alongside 2022 winners Argentina and behind England (6/1) and European champions Spain (5/1).

Brazil round out the top five on 17/2 - although, it must be said, some fairly gargantuan question marks hang over Carlo Ancelotti’s team. The Brazilians may have maintained their status as the only nation to appear at every World Cup since the tournament’s inception in 1930, but they endured a truly dreadful qualifying campaign that was, statistically, the worst in their history.

Thursday’s friendly, held as part of a multi-team series of exhibitions dubbed “Road to 26”, serves as a crucial tournament tune-up for two national teams which, over the past 96 years, have been central characters in the World Cup story. It’s a story that includes four memorable meetings between the countries.

From a Pelé treble to a Thierry Henry volley, via a Mexican marathon and a mysterious seizure, this is a look back at every World Cup matchup between Brazil and France:

1958 World Cup semifinals: Brazil 5-2 France

Eight years before the 1958 finals, Brazil had been all set to clinch their first global crown - until disaster struck. Playing on home soil, the Seleção faced Uruguay in the deciding game of the 1950 World Cup, needing only a draw to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy. However, the hosts’ party suffered the most comprehensive of poopings. Eleven minutes from time at Rio de Janeiro’s Estádio do Maracanã, Alcides Ghiggia secured an against-the-odds, 2-1 win for the visitors, firing past Brazilian goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa to seal the second of Uruguay’s two world titles.

Brazil reached the quarterfinals in Switzerland in 1954, before finally getting their hands on the World Cup four years on. In a 5-2 final victory over hosts Sweden, the tournament’s breakout star - a 17-year-old Pelé - scored what can, probably, be considered the most iconic goal of his legendary career. In an outrageous piece of solo skill, Pelé made a veritable mug of Sweden’s Bengt Gustavsson, lifting the ball over the defender’s head before smashing a volley into the net.

One of two goals scored by Pelé in that final demolition, it was preceded, five days earlier, by a historic hat-trick. In the semifinals against France, Brazil also inflicted a 5-2 thumping on their opponents, in a game that saw the then-teenager become the youngest player to hit a World Cup treble. That record still stands; what’s more, it remains the most recent hat-trick scored by a Brazilian at a men’s World Cup.

Although they were, in the end, well beaten in Stockholm, France were actually level for much of the first half, after Just Fontaine quickly cancelled out Vavá’s second-minute opener. But in an era when substitutions were not yet a thing, the unfortunate French were hamstrung when influential defender Bob Jonquet picked up an injury.

“With Jonquet on the pitch, France were as good as Brazil,” the journalist Brian Glanville wrote in an obituary for the player in 2009. But after losing a center-back described by Glanville as the “elegant master of the French defence”, Les Bleus collapsed. Didi restored Brazil’s lead shortly before the break, before Pelé netted three times in the second half.

Although it was the Brazilians who progressed to a final they ultimately won, Pelé was not the only historic marksman on show in that semifinal at Råsundastadion. Fontaine’s ninth-minute leveller was his ninth goal of the 1958 tournament - and he would add four more in the third-place playoff, as the French walloped West Germany 6-3 to finish on the podium in Sweden. Fontaine’s single-tournament haul of 13 is still a World Cup record.

1986 World Cup quarterfinals: Brazil 1-1 France (3-4 on pens)

Twenty-eight years later, the countries met at FIFA’s global tournament for the second time, in a quarterfinal epic played in blistering Mexican heat. Only the second World Cup tie to be settled by penalties - four years earlier, France had also been involved in the first shootout - the clash in Guadalajara was one “neither team deserved to lose”, Glanville wrote in The Story of the World Cup.

Captained by the imperious attacking midfielder Michele Platini, winner of the previous three Ballons d’Or, France were the reigning European champions, having claimed a maiden continental crown on home turf two years earlier.

Brazil, meanwhile, were three-time World Cup winners by this point, but had not lifted the trophy since 1970 (and would not again for a further eight years). In 1982, the Brazilians had fallen short despite boasting a team described by ESPN’s Gabriele Marcotti as “grotesquely and excessively talented”. A side blessed with greats of the game like Zico and Sócrates, Brazil’s class of ’82 is viewed as one of the finest national teams not to win the World Cup.

Four years on, Brazil still boasted some of the stars of España ’82, but by now were a less-than-youthful iteration of the Seleção: an “ageing model of the sacred symphony of 1982”, according to FIFA’s account of their quarterfinal with France.

Under the sweltering midday sun, Careca crashed Brazil into an early lead at the Estadio Jalisco, only for Platini to roll the French level five minutes before half time. Eighty scoreless minutes then followed, before the tie was decided from 12 yards; but that is not to say the match progressed to spot-kicks with no further drama.

First, Zico came on to create - and then spurn - a potentially game-winning opportunity. Introduced in the 71st minute, he immediately released Branco into the France box, where the fullback was dragged down by France goalkeeper Joel Bats. Zico took the penalty, but it was a dreadful effort. Bats parried with ease.

Then, with extra time almost complete, Platini conjured up a masterful, first-time pass that sent Bruno Bellone clear of the Brazil defense. As Bellone scampered through on goal, Brazil keeper Carlos Gallo raced out of his area - and, with hilariously bare-faced cynicism, fouled the Frenchman with a borderline rugby tackle. Somehow, Bellone stayed on his feet to round Carlos, but he had lost most of his balance and momentum. Defenders raced back to steal the ball before he could score what, seconds earlier, had seemed a certain goal.

As in 1982, when German keeper Harald Schumacher had come steaming out of his penalty box to inflict a brutal assault on Patrick Battiston, France were justifiably incensed that the referee - on this occasion, Romania’s Ioan Igna - took no action. Commentating on the game for the BBC, soccer pundit Jimmy Hall railed at Igna’s “extreme mistake”.

France’s anger soon turned to joy, though. Having endured shootout heartbreak against West Germany in the ’82 semifinals, this time the French prevailed on penalties - despite Platini shanking his kick into low-Earth orbit. Sócrates and Júlio César both missed for Brazil, allowing Luis Fernández to stroke home the winning penalty for Les Bleus. Fernández raced away in celebration, arms aloft, a picture of unadulterated glee.

Four days later, however, France were beaten 2-0 at the same venue, once again suffering last-four elimination at the hands of the Germans. And it would be 12 years before the French were seen again at a World Cup finals.

1998 World Cup final: Brazil 0-3 France

After consecutive World Cup semifinals in 1982 and ’86, France then posted consecutive World Cup DNQs. Absent from Italia ’90 after being out-qualified by Yugoslavia and Scotland, they threw away their ticket to USA ’94 in the very final minute of their campaign to reach the States.

Eventually, in 1998, France returned to the finals. They could not fail to: As hosts, they qualified automatically. And after more than a decade in the World Cup wilderness, Les Bleus enjoyed quite the comeback. Captained by Deschamps, and armed with generational talents such as Zidane, Marcel Desailly, Lilian Thuram and, er, Stéphane Guitarc’h, France finally won their first world title. They did so with a thumping win over Brazil in the final.

The hosts were, though, helped by the Brazilians’ decision to effectively play with 10 men in the title decider in Paris.

Brazil had reached the final, in no small measure, thanks to the goalscoring exploits of Ronaldo Názario, justifiably dubbed O Fenômeno, a player who had won both the Ballon d’Or and World Player of the Year awards in the preceding months. But the Ronaldo we saw in the final was visibly debilitated. In the hours before the game, the Inter Milan striker had suffered an apparent seizure - the source of which remains shrouded in mystery to this day.

After Ronaldo had retired to bed for a pregame snooze, his teammate, Roberto Carlos, found him “lying on his side, shaking”, Jonathan Wilson writes in The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup. Wilson continues: “[Roberto Carlos] had no idea what the problem was but feared his room-mate was having some sort of seizure and summoned help.” Speaking to AS in 2022, Ronaldo recalled: “I went to take a nap as usual before each match and woke up shortly after surrounded by everyone in my room…”

The health scare led Brazil’s head coach, Mário Zagallo, to initially leave Ronaldo out of the lineup for the game; Edmundo was to take his place. But after 11th-hour tests apparently earned Ronaldo the all-clear, he persuaded Zagallo to reinstate him. In a recent interview with Gary Lineker, Ronaldo recalled: “I was like, ‘Are you crazy?’ How can I not play in the final […]? I got there having done the tests and nothing had been found. I was feeling great physically and I wanted to play.”

Ronaldo’s test results may have said he was good to go, but his performance on the pitch proved otherwise. He delivered a one-man recreation of the film Space Jam, playing as if a malicious extraterrestrial had stolen his sporting gifts. “Ronaldo clearly wasn’t right,” Wilson says. “He touched the ball only twenty times in the game, fewer than Edmundo, who played the final 17 minutes.”

With Brazil weakened by Ronaldo’s mystery affliction, France cantered to a 3-0 win, behind two first-half headers from Zidane - a player hardly renowned for his aerial ability. The hosts could even afford to do without Desailly for the final quarter of the match, after the defender got himself a silly second booking. Victory was rubber-stamped right at the end, when substitute Emmanuel Petit finished off a French counter-attack. “Joy for France after 68 years of World Cup striving,” Glanville wrote in The Story of the World Cup. “Humiliation for Brazil.”

2006 World Cup quarterfinals: Brazil 0-1 France

Eight years on from France’s maiden World Cup win, when the teams met again at the finals, there were numerous survivors from 1998 in an ageing French side skippered by Zidane, now 34 and about to retire from playing. “It was more a case of ‘Allez les vieux’ than ‘Allez les bleus’,” quips The Guardian’s Dominic Fifield.

After laboring through the group stages, France had rather defied the form book to reach the quarterfinals. In the last 16, they had faced a Spain team that had sparkled in the round-robin phase, winning all three games. But goals by Franck Ribéry, Henry and Zidane earned a come-from-behind, 3-1 win over La Roja - and set up a last-eight tie with Brazil, the defending champions, who in 2002 had lifted their fifth and most recent World Cup.

Brazil retained three men from ’98: Cafú, Roberto Carlos and, most notably, Ronaldo, who had earned World Cup redemption in South Korea and Japan, scoring an unmatched eight goals. In Germany, his last-16 strike against Ghana then made him, at the time, the leading marksman in World Cup history. The Brazilians’ star-laden ’06 group also featured a peak Ronaldinho, then the Ballon d’Or holder and World Player of the Year; and Kaká, who would win both accolades a year later.

Brazil had waltzed through the group stage, before dispatching Ghana 3-0 in the opening knockout round. But, like Spain before them, they were outplayed by a Zidane-inspired France. Thanks to Henry’s 57th-minute backpost volley, the French triumphed 1-0 at Frankfurt’s Waldstadion, clinching their third win in four World Cup meetings with Brazil.

After three straight appearances in the World Cup final, this was the first time the Brazilians had failed to reach at least the semis since 1990. Moreover, it marked the beginning of what remains something of a fallow World Cup period for the South Americans. Since adding a fifth star to their crest 24 years ago, the Brazilians have returned to the last four just once, and have not contested another final.

As for France, victory over Brazil earned them a semifinal against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal, which they also won, courtesy of a Zidane spot-kick. However, Les Bleus missed out on an improbable title - 12 years before finally securing their second world crown - when they lost the final on penalties to Italy. Zidane, playing in his last game as a pro, served up a swansong with a pair of bonkers bookends: He began by scoring a Panenka-style penalty that he did his level best to screw up; and he finished by headbutting Italy’s Marco Materazzi in the chest, earning probably the most infamous red card in World Cup history.

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