France ’98 champions set for charity reunion

Zinedine Zidane and Lilian Thuram are set to make a rare appearance for France in a charity match which will pit the 1998 world champions against a European select side.

Like most of France’s World Cup winners, Zidane and Thuram have both retired from the game.

But the pair will become ‘Bleus’ for the day on Sunday in a match held to raise funds for victims of severe flooding and the violent ‘Xynthia’ windstorms, which combined left 70 people dead.

Zidane and Thuram will roll back the years and be joined by Bixente Lizarazu, Christian Karembeu, Fabien Barthez, David Trezeguet in a team that will be captained by Didier Deschamps, who is now coach of Marseille.

France ’98 coach Aime Jacquet will return with former assistant Roger Lemerre while recently appointed France coach, Laurent Blanc, is also scheduled to make an appearance.

Former striker Thierry Henry, who recently joined New York Red Bulls, will not be at Nantes’ Stade Beaujoire for the match.

The funds raised, which are estimated to be in the region of 500,000 euros, will go to help victims of the violent ‘Xynthia’ windstorms which crossed western Europe in late February 2010 and which hit France particularly hard.

Forty seven people died in the windstorms which hit western France on February 27 and 28, while severe flooding in the Var left 23 dead.

France’s triumphant side of 1998 has previously organised similar fixtures to raise funds for victims of natural disasters.