The FIFA World Cup is undoubtedly the biggest football competition in the world. The quadrennial footballing mega-event witnesses national teams from all over the world taking on each other to be crowned as the best footballing nation in the world every 4-years. The different teams bring with them their different styles of playing and with it, they also bring a plethora of different superstitions. 

Over the years, superstitions have become a common thing in the FIFA World Cup. Certain players have some personal superstitions but when it comes to an entire team believing in a common superstition, we see it far more often in the World Cup as compared to league matches. 

One of the most memorable and peculiar superstitions in FIFA World Cup history has to be the one that the French team came up with in the 1998 World Cup. 

Back then, France had never won a world cup. In the first few matches of the tournament, defender Laurent Blanc kissed the bald head of their goalkeeper Fabien Barthez and they surprisingly got positive results in those matches. Laurent Blanc started to kiss Barthez’s head before every single match after that and they kept on winning. The entire team slowly began believing in that superstition. 

In fact, when Laurent Blanc missed the Final match between France and Brazil due to suspension, he entered the field wearing a normal jersey and kissed Fabien Barthez’s head before kickoff. France won the match 3-0 and thus lifted their first ever World Cup trophy. 

This was not the only superstition that the French team believed in in the 1998 World Cup. They also listened to the 1970 Gloria Gaynor hit 'I Will Survive’ before every match. 

Laurent Blanc continued to kiss Fabien Barthez’s head before every match in the Euro 2000 as well and surprisingly France ended up winning that tournament as well. Maybe some superstitions are true after all!.