A PATRON SAINT OF PATIENCE; FRENCH COACH HAS MADE THEM BELIEVERS.

Byline: Raf Casert Associated Press 

France is already calling him Saint Aime and his team hasn't even played in the World Cup final yet.

Considering what coach Aime Jacquet has gone through, some might just call him a martyr who has converted millions of disbelievers.

When he took over the French team four years ago, the future looked bleak. Now he has a chance to win the country's first World Cup title with a team known more for its cohesion than stars.

``We have the energy that can move mountains,'' Jacquet said.

The only mountain left is Brazil in the final Sunday in Saint-Denis, just outside Paris.

Whatever happens, the 57-year-old coach will leave after the final, drained by unceasing criticism and the enormity of the task of turning a bunch of losers into World Cup finalists.

First, the goal was to reach the final four, then it was to reach the final, and when the last whistle blew after the 2-1 come-from-behind victory against Croatia, he couldn't even celebrate. He just stood there, dazed.

``I was knocked out, standing up,'' he said. When he realized the achievement, with France throwing the biggest party in decades, he broke down crying.

Outside France, Jacquet was virtually unknown coming into the World Cup. He was bookish and boorish and could not produce flair for ``Les Bleus'' in his first years as coach. He became a target for critics and it has taken a long time to prove them wrong.

He relied on a four-year master plan, but there were questions the whole time. After all, he was the coach who decided against using greats Eric Cantona and David Ginola, when both were in their prime.

It was a brave move when he was already being criticized for dull soccer. But team unity prevailed, and the flashy forwards didn't fit in.

He implemented a stringent defense and lost in the semifinals in the European Championships in 1996. And during the last two years without a competitive game on the schedule, his experimenting often dumbfounded observers and rarely produced encouraging results.

Few understood these were not mad-scientist schemes.

``It would have been easy just to pick the best 11 and prepare the World Cup with them,'' he said.

The World Cup, however, is more complicated than that.

When his star playmaker Zinedine Zidane was suspended for two games, something that would have crippled many teams, Jacquet simply went to Plan B, which he had prepared with those misunderstood experiments. As a result, France is in the final.

``To be on top, nothing can be left to chance,'' he said.

Even if it took him off the beaten path. When all the teams arrived for the World Cup, Jacquet took his players to Finland instead and was one of the last to show up before the first kickoff.

He refused to settle on a fixed team, preferring to use inner competition to keep everyone sharp. In the first three games, he used 20 of 22 players, a World Cup record.

Now in the final, even his biggest critic, L'Equipe sports paper, is reconsidering.

``You can always discuss the methods, but you have to admire the result,'' said Gerard Ejnes, the sports daily's deputy chief editor.

``You can only congratulate Aime Jacquet, since he has reached the goal he had set himself: making France play the World Cup final.''

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PHOTO (Color) JACQUET