Founded in 1904, France’s national men’s soccer team first stood out in 1958, coming in third at the World Cup in Sweden. A promising follow-up in 1982 was dashed when Germany bested them in Seville. Victory finally came in 1998, with France hosting and winning their first world title. Twenty years later, they repeated the feat. Historian François da Rocha Carneiro analyzes the trajectory of France’s team, focusing on players and coaches individually and as a group. He also scrutinizes the World Cup’s institutional, political, and media contexts to understand why these men, in that exact time and place, brought home the Cup (or not), recalling key matches, strategies, and emotions.