Ahmed Oudjani

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Ahmed Oudjani (born March 19, 1937 in Philippeville (now Skikda) , † January 15, 1998 ) was an Algerian- French football player.

Club career

The center forward came to the 1958/59 season from the US Vendôme , for which he had been the most successful goalscorer in the season west of the third-rate CFA , to the first division Racing Lens . There he scored 15 hits in his first year as a professional. In 1959/60, no other player from the north of France, including his strike partner Michel Lafranceschina , scored more goals than the young Algerian, whose 16 goals were enough for 12th place among the best attackers in the league. The 1.80 m tall, athletic Ahmed Oudjani quickly became a fan favorite at the Stade Félix-Bollaert due to his carefree and successful style of play .

But in 1960 his sporting career was interrupted for two years due to the Algerian War of Independence , which is why he - like many of his compatriots from Division 1 , such as Abdelaziz Ben Tifour , Saïd Brahimi , Rachid Mekhloufi and Mustapha Zitouni  - returned to North Africa. It is not known whether he fought for the FLN liberation movement with a weapon ; but he played with the FLN national team, particularly in the stadiums of Eastern Europe and the Third World , to promote the Algerian cause. Only after the peace treaty (1962) did he return to RC Lens and “hadn't forgotten anything”: in 1962/63 he scored 17 goals again (11th place among the league chasers).

The "Blood Red Golden" - the Lenser players are known as Sang et Or because of their jersey colors - ended the seasons of these years mostly only in the middle of the table, but in 1963/64 Oudjani came closer to winning the title than ever in his career. The team had to cope with a considerable bloodletting at the beginning of the season: with Robert Budzynski , Guillaume Bieganski and striker Maryan Wisnieski , three veteran supporters had left the club. Nevertheless, Lens finished in third place in the championship , just behind AS Saint-Étienne and AS Monaco , and in the national cup his eleven reached the quarter-finals, in which the eventual final winner Olympique Lyon defeated 0-1 thanks to his own storm tips Combin and Di Nallo, however, prevailed 2: 1. Even more: Ahmed Oudjani scored an exorbitant 30 goals, often after assists from right winger Georges Lech , making him top scorer ; on December 8, 1963, he scored six goals against Racing Paris within 90 minutes (final score: 10: 2), a record number for a single first division match that is unmatched in France after the Second World War to this day.

In the following season he scored 15 league goals (rank 7) and in 1965 moved to the second division for Racing Club Paris, which in 1966/67, after a merger with UA Sedan-Torcy , entered the top division again as RC Paris-Sedan . Due to health problems, Oudjani only managed 19 point games and six goals in these two years. In 1967/68 he played for the lower class SM Caen and from 1968 in Algeria for US Tebessa and JSM Béjaïa , before returning to the Sang et Or in 1970 and scoring six goals for them in 26 second division games in two years. He then worked for the Racing Club Lens, in particular as a match observer and youth coach.

Ahmed Oudjani died of cardiac arrest at the age of 60. His son Chérif , born in France in 1964 , a striker like his father, also played in the top French leagues in the 1980s and 1990s, including at RC Lens, and for the Algerian national team. However, the son was also able to win a major title when he became African champion with Algeria in 1990 .

Stations

  • Union Sportive de Vendôme (1957/58)
  • Racing Club Lens (1958-1960)
  • FLN selection (1960–1962)
  • Racing Club Lens (1962-1965)
  • Racing Club de Paris (1965/66, in D2)
  • Racing Club Paris-Sedan (1966/67)
  • Stade Malherbe Caen (1967/68, in the amateur field)
  • Union Sportive de Tebessa (1968/69)
  • Jeunesse Sportive Madinet de Béjaïa (1969/70)
  • Racing Club Lens (1970–1972, in D2)

In the national team

Oudjani has played a number of senior international matches for the Algerian national team ; the sources differ with regard to the total number (15 or only 8), which is possibly due to the fact that by no means all matches from the early years of the national team, founded in 1963, are considered official. What is certain is his action against Germany , which - in one of the last games under national coach Herberger  - was defeated by Algeria on New Year's Day 1964; alongside other former France professionals (Mekhloufi, Khennane , Zitouni and goalkeeper Boubekeur ) Ahmed Oudjani scored the goal in the 30th minute to make it 2-0. He was also involved in the other three international matches, which are among the very early highlights of the Fennecs - "Desert Foxes" is a name for the Algerian national team: on February 28, 1963 in a 4-0 win against Czechoslovakia , on November 4th 1964 in a 2-2 draw against the USSR and on June 17, 1965 in a 0-3 draw against Brazil .

Palmarès

  • French champion: Nothing
  • French cup winner: Nothing
  • at least 8 international matches (at least 1 goal) for Algeria
  • 155 games and 95 goals in Division 1 , including 148/94 for Lens, 7/1 for Paris-Sedan; also 45/12 in Division 2
  • Division 1 top scorer : 1963/64

literature

  • Sophie Guillet / François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2007. Vecchi, Paris 2006 ISBN 2-7328-6842-6
  • Paul Hurseau / Jacques Verhaeghe: Les immortels du football nordiste. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003 ISBN 2-84253-867-6
  • Michel Nait-Challal: Dribbleurs de l'indépendance. L'incroyable histoire de l'équipe de football du FLN algérien. Ed. Prolongations, o. O. 2008 ISBN 978-2-9164-0032-7
  • Jean-Philippe Rethacker / Jacques Thibert: La fabuleuse histoire du football. Minerva, Genève 1996, 2003 2 ISBN 978-2-8307-0661-1

Remarks

  1. ↑ All information on Oudjani's hits, also below, from Guillet / Laforge, pp. 160–168.
  2. ↑ a b Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 100
  3. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 278
  4. ↑ http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804141731.html?page=2
  5. ↑ In 1960 and 1965 he had won the Coupe Drago twice with the RC Lens , a competition that was subordinate in its value, however, for which the professional clubs that were eliminated early in the national cup played in order to generate additional income (see also here ).
  6. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 1001
  7. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 365f.
  8. ↑ Guillet / Laforge, p. 165
  9. ^ Marc Barreaud: Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du championnat professionnel français (1932-1997). L'Harmattan, Paris 1998 ISBN 2-7384-6608-7 , p. 80
  10. ↑ 15 international matches according to http://www.sitercl.com/Fichejo/O/oudjanah.htm , only eight according to Hurseau / Verhaeghe, p. 100
  11. ↑ cf. the list of Algerian internationals on http://www.rsssf.com/tablesa/alg-intres.html
  12. ↑ DFB (ed.): Passion for the ball. 100 years of German international matches 1908 to 2008. Medienfabrik, Gütersloh 2007 ISBN 978-3-577-14701-9 , p. 346
  13. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 204f .; Lineup of the USSR game from http://www.rusteam.permian.ru/history/1964_07.html
  14. ↑ Numbers from Stéphane Boisson / Raoul Vian: Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot, Saint-Thibault o. J.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oudjani, Ahmed
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Algerian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Philippeville , Algeria
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1998