Each team was required to submit a squad of 22 players – numbered sequentially from 1 to 22 – from whom they would select their teams for each match at the tournament, with the final squads to be submitted by 1 June 1998. In total, 704 players were selected for the tournament.It featured players born in four different decades, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. The only other times this has happened at a World Cup was in the 1958, 1970 and 1990 editions.Players’ ages as of 10 June 1998, the tournament’s opening day.