Contents
On July 12, 1998, France beat Brazil 3–0 in the World Cup final at the Stade de France. Zinedine Zidane scored twice with headers, and Emmanuel Petit added the third goal. That night about a million people celebrated on the Champs-Élysées, and a tribute to Zidane was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. The team earned a nickname that played on the national colors, blue-white-red (bleu-blanc-rouge): “Black-Blanc-Beur” – black, white, Arab. An example of the Team Principle of Diversity.
A Team Under Fire
Situation
Coach Aimé Jacquet had a squad whose family histories reached into many parts of the world. Zidane was the son of immigrants of North African origin. Marcel Desailly was born in Ghana, Christian Karembeu in New Caledonia, and Lilian Thuram came from the Antilles. Others had Armenian, Portuguese, Spanish, Argentine or Senegalese roots. Didier Deschamps and Laurent Blanc came from mainland France. All of them were French internationals. The far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen had attacked the makeup of the squad and complained that many players did not sing the national anthem.
Connection to the team principle
The Team Principle of Diversity states: differences only make a team smarter if it puts them to use – otherwise they split it. Even before the tournament began, people outside the team were trying to draw a fault line through it. Whether it cracks open is decided inside. Jacquet’s team had a goal bigger than any question of origin: winning the title on home soil.
Seven Matches, One Goal
Situation
France beat South Africa 3–0 in the opening match in Marseille. In the quarterfinal the team beat Italy on penalties. In the semifinal against Croatia, defender Lilian Thuram scored both goals in a 2–1 win – his first for France. In the final, Desailly was shown a red card in the second half. The team saw out the win even with ten men.
Connection to the team principle
On the field, what counted was what each player contributed to the game. A defender decided the semifinal, a playmaker the final. When a red card left the team a man down, the others picked up the slack. That is what diversity put to use looks like: clear roles, one goal, mutual dependence. The players’ different origins were not the reason for the success. They simply did not stand in its way, because something shared was stronger.
The Leap to a Whole Nation
Situation
After the final, many saw the team as an image of a united France. Yet as early as 1999, in a survey by a government commission, 36% of respondents said there were too many players of foreign origin on the national team. On October 6, 2001, at a friendly between France and Algeria at the Stade de France, the Marseillaise was booed. Spectators invaded the field, and the match was abandoned. Looking back in 2008, Thuram said, in essence, that the 1998 celebration had been just a slogan.
Connection to the team principle
A victory papers over fault lines; it does not close them. What 23 players achieve in six weeks under one coach with one goal cannot be transferred to a society in which those conditions are absent. For leaders, this is a familiar trap: after a success, you declare the team united and stop working on the differences.
2011: The Fault Line Reaches the World Champions
Situation
At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the French team fell apart in a dispute with the coaching staff. In 2011 the news site Mediapart revealed discussions within the federation about quotas based on origin in youth development. The national coach by then was Laurent Blanc, one of the 1998 world champions. He apologized; the sports minister cleared him. The affair divided the heroes of 1998: Zidane and Desailly stood up for Blanc, while Patrick Vieira and Thuram criticized him.
Connection to the team principle
Thirteen years after the title, the line ran right through the world champions themselves. Research describes this mechanism. A meta-analysis by Sherry M. B. Thatcher, Bertolt Meyer, Youngsang Kim and Pankaj C. Patel (2024, 168 studies, 24,953 teams) found that dormant fault lines do not directly lower performance. The damage depends on their being activated – that is, perceived by those involved as a divide. In 1998 the line stayed silent. In 2011 a debate about origin made it an issue – and it took its toll.
Key takeaways
Key Lessons
- Don’t mistake success for unity. After a successful project, ask what carried you – and whether it will still hold without time pressure and a shared goal.
- Give a diverse team a goal everyone wants and roles in which everyone is needed.
- Pay attention to what turns differences into an issue on your team: criteria, quotas, remarks. That is how dormant fault lines wake up.
- Don’t let anyone carry a fault line into your team from outside. Stand up for your people when their belonging is called into question.
Summary
On the field, France’s 1998 world champions made use of what each player brought, and they won the title on home soil. The hope that this had also united the country went unfulfilled, and in 2011 a debate within the federation divided even the world champions. The example shows both halves of the Team Principle of Diversity: differences carry a team as long as a goal and roles bind them together. Once that falls away and the divide becomes the issue, they split.