The 1997 Tournoi de France (; French, 'Tournament of France'), often referred to as Le Tournoi, was an international

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

tournament held in France in early June 1997 as a warm-up to the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

. The four national teams participating at the tournament were

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, hosts

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. They played against each other in a single

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero ...

with the group winner also being the winner of the tournament.

Event

England won the tournament after collecting six points by winning their first two matches, against Italy and France, and losing one to Brazil. Brazil were second with five points, a product of a win and two draws. Their 3–3 draw with Italy included two goals from then 22-year-old

Alessandro Del Piero Alessandro Del Piero (; born 9 November 1974) is an Italian former professional footballer who mainly played as a deep-lying forward, although he was capable of playing in several offensive positions. Since 2015, he has worked as a pundit fo ...

and one goal apiece from

Romário Romário de Souza Faria Figueiredo (born 29 January 1966), known simply as Romário (), is a Brazilian politician and a former professional footballer. A prolific striker renowned for his clinical finishing, he scored over 750 goals and was ...

and

Ronaldo Ronaldo is a Portuguese given name equivalent to the English Ronald. It became a common name in all Portuguese-speaking countries, being also prevalent in Italy and Spanish-speaking countries. People Notable people known as Ronaldo include: As ...

as well as one

own goal An own goal, also called a self goal, is where a player performs actions that result in them or their team scoring a goal on themselves, often resulting in a point for the opposing team, such as when a football player kicks a ball into their own ...

from each of the teams. Del Piero was the top goalscorer of the tournament with three goals scored while Romário scored twice. In the 21st minute of the opening match between France and Brazil,

Roberto Carlos Roberto Carlos da Silva Rocha (born 10 April 1973), commonly known as Roberto Carlos, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who now works as a football ambassador. He started his career in Brazil as a forward but spent most of his care ...

scored his famous ''Banana Shot''

free kick A free kick is an action used in several codes of football to restart play with the kicking of a ball into the field of play. Association football In association football, the free kick is a method of restarting the game following an offence ...

goal, curling from a 33.13-metre distance and often considered to be one of the best in the modern game.The Cross Ratio
Numberphile, 2018.

Elo Ratings before the tournament

Venues

Squads

Table

Results

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Statistics

Goalscorers

Broadcasters

Rai 1 Rai 1 () is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream and general ...

FORTA The Federation of Regional Organizations of Radio and Television ( es, Federación de Organismos de Radio y Televisión Autonómicos, FORTA) is the association of the public broadcasting networks from 12 Autonomous Communities of Spain, autonomou ...

* SVT *

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

(English),

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...

(Spanish)

References

External links

RSSSF
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tournoi

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

1996–97 in English football 1996–97 in French football 1996–97 in Italian football 1997 in Brazilian football 1998 FIFA World Cup June 1997 sports events in Europe International men's association football invitational tournaments