Eric Di Meco

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Eric Di Meco
Personnel
birthday September 7, 1963
place of birth Avignon ,  France
size 180 cm
position Left full-back
Juniors
Years station
1971-1977 Robion
1977-1980 MJC Avignon
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1980-1994 Olympique Marseille 215 (10)
1980-1992 Olympique Marseille B 56 0(8)
1986-1987 →  AS Nancy  (loan) 30 0(1)
1987-1988 →  FC Martigues  (loan) 31 0(2)
1994-1998 AS Monaco 65 0(1)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1989-1996 France 23 0(0)
1 Only league games are given.

Éric Di Meco (born September 7, 1963 in Avignon , Département Vaucluse ) is a former French national football player and local politician. With Olympique Marseille , the defender won the French championship five times , which is a club record. He was also part of the team that won the Champions League in 1993 . He won another championship title with AS Monaco .

Di Meco later became involved in the UMP party as a local politician in Marseille and also held the office of deputy mayor of the city.

biography

Soccer

Di Meco came to the crisis-ridden Club Olympique de Marseille in 1980/81, which was bobbing in the second division at the time and only returned to the football club in 1984 . Di Meco did not manage to play in his position on the left winger in the regular formation and was therefore loaned to AS Nancy in 1986 and then to FC Martigues the following year . The breakthrough he did not succeed there either, so that he himself considered retiring from professional football.

The positive turning point in his career came when Marseille's then coach Gérard Banide brought him back to Olympique and put the previous attacker on the defensive. As a left defender, Di Meco developed his full talent and proved over the years to be a reliable and uncompromising defender who was difficult to get past.

Between 1989 and 1996 he was also allowed to wear the jersey of the French national team 23 times . In 1996 he was part of the squad at the European Football Championship in England . there he only came to the train in the first game in the 1-0 win against Romania, where he was replaced by Bixente Lizarazu in the 66th minute . France was eliminated in the semifinals of this tournament on penalties against the Czech Republic. Besides the European Championship in 1992 , this was the only tournament for which France qualified in those years

Measured by the number of titles won, he is the most successful OM player of all time. Including the 1993 title, which was later revoked from the club for manipulation, he became French champions five times in a row from 1989 and also won the French Cup in 1989 . The highlight, however, was winning the Champions League , which was held for the first time in 1993 under coach Raymond Goethals, with a 1-0 win over AC Milan in the Munich Olympic Stadium .

When Olympique Marseille was sentenced to relegation at the end of the 1993/94 season for manipulation in the era of club president Bernard Tapie , Di Meco moved to AS Monaco . With the Monegasque he won the championship of the 1996/97 season. In 1998 he ended his playing career with the Red-Whites when he was just under 35.

politics

Thereafter, Di Meco established himself as a politician in Marseille. He came first for the UMP , the center-right party of President Nicolas Sarkozy , in the municipal council of the city. From 2001 until his resignation in 2008, he was the city's deputy mayor. During this time he was mainly active in youth work and led various drug prevention programs.

literature

  • L'Histoire de l'Olympique de Marseille (Hugo et Compagnie, Paris 2009), pages 181 and 211

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Di Meco, Eric
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player and politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Avignon , France