PSG and the World Cup: Act III, the 2000s

Four years after Les Bleus were crowned world champions on home soil, a Parisian was sitting atop the world at the 2002 FIFA World Cup in in Japan and Korea: the Brazilian Ronaldinho.

The Paris No.10 played five matches and scored twice, including a sublime free-kick against England and being sent-off in the same match (2-1, 21/06/2002) before being crowned in the final against Germany (2-0, 30/06/2002).

Ronaldinho ran the full gamut of emotions during the tournament: It’s the dream of every footballer to represent your country at the World Cup. When the final whistle blew in the final, I couldn’t realise understand what was happening. I celebrated, but without really understanding that we were actually world champions. It didn’t really sink in until we returned to Brazil and then everywhere I went, I saw just how important it was.

The four other Parisians at the tournament were all eliminated at the first hurdle: Mauricio Pochettino with Argentina, Jay-Jay Okocha and Bartholomew Ogbeche with Nigeria and Selim Benachour with Tunisia.

In 2006, there were four Parisians in Germany: the Czech David Rozehnal, the Ivorian Bonaventure Kalou, the Frenchman Vikash Dhorasoo and Portuguese forward Pedro Miguel Pauleta.

The first two bowed out after the group stage. Pauleta and Portugal exited at the hands of France in the semi-finals (0-1, 05/07/2006) – Pauleta netting once in five matches. At 33 years of age, this tournament marked the end of the Eagle of Açores’ international career: I spent ten fantastic years in the national team and my time was up. I will always know that with the Portugal national team, we were so close to achieving something exceptional… But I still have a lot of great memories and I consider myself lucky to have been a part of it. 

Vikash Dhorasoo only played a few minutes in the competition as Les Bleus lost the final to Italy on penalties (1-1 a.e.t, pens. 3-5, 09/07/2006): I enjoyed a lot of great moments in my career, but the World Cup was the pinnacle. The eyes of the world were focused on us and I was lucky enough to be chosen amongst the best players of my country.