List of France national football team captains

The France national football team (French: Equipe de France) represents the nation of France in international association football. It is fielded by the French Football Federation (FFF) (French: Fédération Française de Football) and competes as a member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The team played its first official international match on 1 May 1904 against Belgium.[1][2] Since its first competitive match, more than 800 players have made at least one international appearance for the team.[3] Of them, 105 have served as captain of the national team. This list contains football (soccer) players who have served as captain of the France national team and is listed according to their number of matches captained. They are black

The France national team's record appearance-maker as captain is Didier Deschamps, who led the team out 52 times during his 103-cap tenure, which lasted through three decades. Deschamps is also the most successful France captain, having worn the armband, an indicator of the team's captain, in team victories at the 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000.[4] The Bayonne-born midfielder surpassed the previous record-holder of the France captaincy, midfielder Michel Platini, in the team's semi-final match at the latter competition. Platini became the first France captain to win a major international competition after leading the team in the 1984 European Football Championship. Aside from Deschamps and Platini, only three other players have captained France on over 40 occasions: defenders Roger Marche and Marcel Desailly, and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. Marche is one of two French captains to lead the team at two FIFA World Cup competitions. Desailly captained the team to victories at the 2001 and 2003 editions of the FIFA Confederations Cup. He is one of four players to be sent off in a FIFA World Cup final, one of the other three being fellow France captain Zinedine Zidane. Lloris captained France to victory at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and to the final of UEFA Euro 2016 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

  1. ^ url="Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-02-01. Retrieved 2015-05-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) FIFA
  2. ^ "01/05/1904 Equipe de France A – Amical" (in French). French Football Federation. Archived from the original on 29 July 2012. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  3. ^ Chaumier, Denis (2004). Les Bleus – Tous les joueurs de l'équipe de France de 1904 à nos jours (in French). Éditions Larousse. ISBN 2-03-505420-6.
  4. ^ "The captain's role". The Football Association. Archived from the original on 2 April 2010. Retrieved 5 April 2011.