Scottish Football Forums

It’s the second instalment of our Euro ’92 throwback series, where John Bleasdale looks at two sides who underperformed in the tournament – France and CIS, formerly known as Soviet Union and now Russia. He is joined by journalists Pierre-Etienne Minonzio of French newspaper L’Equippe and Russian correspondent for ESPN, Sky Sports and The Guardian amongst others Artur Petrosyan. France arrived in Sweden as one of the pre-tournament favourites having won all eight of their qualifiers, but Pierre explains that part of it was down to luck rather than design. He goes into tremendous detail as to why France performed so poorly at Euro ’92, culminating in their exit at the hands of Denmark in the final group game. From an unfocussed group of players believing their path to the Final was mapped out, to an unfocussed manager in French legend Michel Platini, who announced pre-tournament he was leaving to focus on an ambassador role for the France ’98 World Cup, it was a recipe for their disastrous early exit in the gr