Man, sometimes life just throws you a project when you least expect it. I wasn’t looking to deep-dive into late 90s football history last week, trust me. I was just trying to clear out the darned garage.
I needed space to finally build that workbench I keep promising myself. So I spent Saturday pulling boxes out, moving dusty lawn equipment, and generally getting filthier than I’d been since college. Right there, crammed behind an old set of golf clubs I never use, I pulled out a box labeled ‘Junk?’ I opened it. What did I find? My old, bleached-out France 98 jersey. Number 10, Zizou. Talk about a throwback. That shirt was threadbare; I practically lived in it that summer.
I sat down right there on the dusty concrete floor, holding this piece of cotton, and immediately started thinking: what are those guys actually doing now? It’s been 26 years! Some of them I see on TV, sure, but what about the rest? The guys who scored, the guys who sat the bench, the guys who made that team click? So I slammed the box shut, grabbed my tablet, and told myself, forget the workbench, we’re finding out where the heroes went. This wasn’t just a simple Wikipedia check; I needed to map their entire post-career journeys by cross-referencing old articles and foreign news clips.
The Initial Reconnaissance: Finding the Big Names
The first step was easy, of course. You punch in Zinédine Zidane, you get immediate, massive results. Coaching, Real Madrid, rumors about Bayern or maybe the French national team one day. He’s still front page news, obviously. Same deal with Didier Deschamps; he’s been steering the ship for France forever now. That was the boring stuff, the expected path. I figured maybe 10% of the squad stayed that visible.
Then I started tracking the players who became broadcasters. This was the next obvious career path for anyone who didn’t want to mess with the stress of club management. I had to cross-reference French sports channels and listen to snippets of radio shows to figure out who landed where. Turns out guys like Christophe Dugarry, Bixente Lizarazu, and Emmanuel Petit pretty much all shifted immediately into punditry. They are everywhere. They talk, they argue, they analyze. A solid, visible career transition, if you ask me. Easy money, still involved in the game, but without the headache of daily training.
The Deep Dig: Tracking the Quiet Guys
This is where the real work started, and honestly, where it got interesting. What about the guys who just vanished? The guys who wanted out of the public eye? I had to dig through old newspaper archives and translate some seriously obscure regional interviews to find out what happened to the bench players or the quieter starters. It took hours just to pin down what half of them are doing for a living.
I started tracking back Marcel Desailly first. Didn’t realize he did some initial coaching work in Ghana but then stepped back into media and charity work. Then I moved to Liliam Thuram. He’s doing major political and social activism, focusing on education and fighting racism. A total shift from the pitch, focusing on deep, meaningful societal work. He clearly decided football was just a stage to launch his real mission.
But the most surprising finds were the ones who went completely civilian:
- Bernard Lama: Tried coaching, didn’t stick. Now I found reports saying he’s reportedly involved in an investment firm and managing a few youth academies quietly. He pulled the plug on the spotlight completely after his playing days ended.
- Alain Boghossian: Tried the coaching assistant gig with France, then settled into a low-key consultant role. He isn’t chasing the top jobs anymore, happy being an advisor.
- Vincent Candela: This one floored me. I finally tracked him down through some Italian business journals. Turns out he’s heavily involved in real estate and hospitality projects, particularly in Italy where he played for Roma. Not a football boot or microphone in sight. He built a whole new life outside of the game.
- Bernard Diomède: The quiet hero. After bouncing around in lower divisions, he settled into working full-time with youth development for the French national setup. He’s actually shaping the next generation, doing the thankless, important work behind the scenes.
The Wrap-Up: What I Learned
After a full day pulling reports, cross-referencing names, and translating fragmented interviews, I realized something important. When a team wins something that huge, we tend to think they all follow the same path—become a manager or a TV star. But they don’t. That 1998 team splintered into three distinct groups: Group one: The high-profile managers (Zidane, Deschamps). Group two: The consistent media pundits (Petit, Lizarazu). And Group three: The guys who just wanted a normal, post-football life, whether that meant developing property, managing investments, or quietly coaching kids. They used the career peak as a launchpad for total anonymity.
It’s a massive logistical challenge to track down two dozen men whose careers peaked 26 years ago, especially when they deliberately tried to disappear. But seeing the sheer variety in their post-career choices—from global activism to running quiet businesses—it made that dusty jersey feel even more special. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I finally have to finish clearing out that garage.