The Marseille match-fixing scandal turned Emmanuel Petit into a zombie, but the midfielder hit back to become a champion with Arsenal and France, driven by a desire to honour the sibling he lost as a teenager
Words Arthur Renard
EMMANUEL PETIT
“When I won the World Cup, there was a feeling of serenity. I had fulfilled the promise I made to myself. I’d reached the target.” For any footballer, lifting the World Cup is the pinnacle – a life-changing moment. For Emmanuel Petit, there was a deeper, more personal meaning when Les Bleus beat Brazil at the Stade de France in 1998.
“I was interviewed by French TV straight after the match,” Petit tells FourFourTwo. “I remember saying how proud I was to win the World Cup in front of our own fans. Then I said, ‘I just want to say to my family: this is it! I did it. I did it!’ I got very emotional – I was almost ready to cry on camera. The people in France knew about my story. On TV, it had a big impact.”
Petit’s story is a heartbreaking one. In 1988, the midfielder was with his parents in Monaco, having recently signed for Les Monegasques as a teenager, when they received a devastating call from Dieppe, back home in Normandy. His elder brother, Olivier, had been playing for amateur side Arques that afternoon. “A friend phoned and told my father that my brother had died on the pitch,” Petit, 52, recounts now. “I remember my father smashing his face into the wall. He was so distressed. It was the first time I’d seen him cry.”
It appeared that Olivier had died because of a brain haemorrhage. “Since that day, I made a promise to myself,” continues Petit. “I would always play for my brother, I would always play for my family. I would find extra motivation every single time I touched the ball and try everything to take the pain away, for my family. I wanted them to be happy. Because he died on a football pitch, I thought it was like a divine task. I’m not religious, but I thought that if my brother died on the pitch, it was for a reason. If God took my brother, it was probably because he wanted me to do something in football.
“Whenever I entered the pitch after that, I always said the same prayer in my mind. Before kick-off, I would go up to the penalty area, pick out some grass, let it float away in the wind and think the same thing: ‘I know you’re watching me. I will try my best for you to be proud of me. I will give my best on the pitch today’.”
The words are etched into Petit’s memory. Today, there is emotion in his voice when he utters
