Bacary Sagna wants to make his childhood dream come true and win the World Cup with France this summer.
The Arsenal right back's earliest memories of the tournament include Les Bleus' triumph in 1998, when Sagna was among those celebrating as France went "crazy".
Sagna set himself a target when Didier Deschamps lifted the World Cup - and now he feels closer than ever to emulating that revered France squad.
"I dreamt about winning the World Cup many times," Sagna told Arsenal.com.
"Many times I was thinking I would love to lift that cup and celebrate. Especially when France won it in 1998, it was madness. The country went crazy and I remember thinking about being one of those players. I am now.
"The way they were playing was just magical because they played with big smiles on their faces. You could see when the pressure was on, they were just there to play football and give their best. They gave some pleasure to the fans"
Sagna on Brazil in 1994
"The first World Cup I remember was 1994 in the USA, when I watched Brazil. They had Romario and Bebeto, Taffarel the goalkeeper, and I was discovering football a bit.
"The way they were playing was just magical because they played with big smiles on their faces. You could see when the pressure was on, they were just there to play football and give their best. They gave some pleasure to the fans."
Sagna considers this summer's World Cup to be his first major tournament. He missed the last two European Championships through injury and prefers to overlook the 2010 World Cup, when France suffered on and off the pitch.
"I will take this as my first competition because I got injured in the past competitions," he said. "It's going to be massive because the last World Cup was a disaster for the French national team.
"We made some mistakes and I think we learnt from these mistakes. The team is totally different, some players are playing now that were not even there. So we just want to look forward and show a different image from the previous competitions that we played.
"Paul Pogba is a player to look out for. I think he will be a great player, he plays for Juventus, he used to play for Man United. I think he's going to be one of the biggest players to play for the French national team and for many years.
"It could be our turn to win it but before this we need to work, we need to play well, and give the maximum."
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
