Albert Batteux

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Albert Batteux in 1949

Albert Batteux (born July 2, 1919 in Reims , † February 28, 2003 in Meylan , Département Isère ) was a French football coach and football player . Because of his successes, he went down in the history of French football : in 2000 he was voted the second best French coach of the century (behind the 1998 world champion coach Aimé Jacquet ), and in mid-2013 the editors of France Football unanimously voted him the best club coach who had been in the top French league since 1932, explains.

The player

His career as a player took place at his hometown club Stade de Reims , for which the striker , who was increasingly placed in the runner row , kicked successfully from 1937 to 1950, albeit interrupted by the Second World War: Reims was not in the 1937-1939 represented the highest division ( Division 1 ) and during the occupation (1940-1944) Batteux was not consistently part of the squad of the club playing in the northern season, but he was in 1944 with the regional team ( Équipe Fédérale ) Reims-Champagne in the cup final (0: 4 against the ÉF Nancy-Lorraine). From 1945, under more regular conditions, he played in the first division of the first division, with whom he was also champion in 1949 and cup winner in 1950. After the cup success, Albert Batteux became the coach of the same club, and in the following two seasons he still fielded himself in 34 of the 68 first division games.

Batteux made his debut in the French national football team on June 6, 1948. He completed eight missions for the Équipe Tricolore in 1948 and 1949 , scored one goal and was also the team captain in four games.

Success as a player

The trainer

Immediately after his resignation as a player, club president Henri Germain Albert Batteux entrusted his old team, for which he was responsible for a total of thirteen years (1950–1963) and made them one of the best teams in Europe with his coaching philosophy of fast, technically demanding offensive play formed. During this time, Reims was French champion five times, twice (1954, 1963) runner-up, once cup winners, and twice only lost to Real Madrid in the final of the European Cup .

In addition to his work as a club coach, he was also responsible for the national team from late February 1955 to May 1962 , which he looked after in 56 international matches. At the Football World Cup in 1958 , he took them to third place - France's greatest success up to that point. Batteux hesitated when the selection committee of the French association FFF offered him this position at the suggestion of Pierre Pibarot ; Jules Bigot had given her notice shortly before, because the said committee had given him minimal leeway with regard to the implementation of the course and the selection of the players to be invited. Only after a conversation with Paul Nicolas , the coming “strong man” of the Comité de sélection , in which he assured him of “sole responsibility for all technical and tactical questions”, did Batteux give his consent and was formally appointed on February 25, 1955. At the start, he led the Bleus to a 2-1 away win against Spain in mid-March , in which he had used five Reimser players, of whom Raymond Kopa was carried across the lawn of the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu by enthusiastic Spanish spectators after the final whistle .

From 1963 to 1967 Batteux disappeared somewhat from the headlines (coach at Grenoble FC in Division 2 ), before AS Saint-Étienne signed him as the successor to Jean Snella and he immediately held a series of three national championships in a row with the Stéphanois (1968– 1970), and in 1968 and 1970 he also made the double twice by winning the cup. 1972 ended this very successful time with the Greens (French: les Verts ) from Saint-Étienne; in his last years as a coach he was still in charge of Olympique Avignon , OGC Nice and in the 1980/81 season during 17 games Olympique Marseille before he retired in Grenoble.

Much of what made the coach Batteux - who was purely self-taught - successful and popular is now a matter of course for being a trainer; At a time when many clubs in France and also the national team did not employ a trained, permanent coach, and certainly not a staff of specialists - Batteux's immediate predecessor in Reims, Henri Roessler , was typically still a player- coach himself what he "expected" players and club presidents, still completely new territory. Batteux had a concept that he taught his players in Reims, Saint-Étienne and the Équipe Tricolore (which mainly consisted of players from his club team): constant movement in the game without the ball, calm build-up of the game, high ball skill even for the defenders and above all: not to hope for mistakes of the opponent (Batteux called it the "English hurray football"), but to force the opponent on his game and to create numerous chances for oneself conscious of one's own strengths. He always encouraged players to live out their individual strengths on the pitch; For example, he explicitly asked young Raymond Kopa after a game to do something more often on his own in the future: "Your dribbles are a terrible weapon - they are your most important trump card and therefore also that of the team, which you give them freedom." Albert Batteux led until then absolutely uncommon in France and about in the early 1950s corner à la rémoise called short corner one.

Coupled with an absolutely offensive alignment, this resulted in a style of play with which both Reims and Saint-Étienne each dominated French football for more than a decade. This tactic required the highest physical fitness of all players; therefore Albert Batteux regularly introduced a ten-day training camp before the start of the season, in which he specifically trained the strength and endurance of the squad. The authority of the coach and, above all, the success of his measures meant that fundamental criticism from players and journalists remained the absolute exception in Batteux's career, especially since he did not order what he asked of his team, but explained it; this earned him the nickname “the preacher” (French le prédicateur ). Even today, even particularly critical and opinionated players such as Kopa, Dominique Colonna and Just Fontaine only praise their former coach and often even say words of admiration.

Success as a trainer

literature

  • Christophe Barge / Laurent Tranier, Vert passion. Les plus belles histoires de l'AS Saint-Étienne , Timée-Ed., Boulogne 2004 ISBN 2-915586-04-7
  • Denis Chaumier, Les Bleus. Tous les joueurs de l'équipe de France de 1904 à nos jours , Larousse, o.O. 2004 ISBN 2-03-505420-6
  • Jean Cornu: Les grandes equipes françaises de football. Famot, Genève 1978
  • Gérard Ejnès / L'Équipe, 50 ans de Coupes d'Europe , Hachette, Paris 2005 ISBN 2-95196-059-X
  • Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau / Tony Verbicaro, Stade de Reims - une histoire sans fin , Ed. des Cahiers intempestifs Saint-Étienne 2001 ISBN 2-911698-21-5
  • Sophie Guillet / François Laforge, Le Guide Français et International du Football 2005 , Ed. de Vecchi, Paris 2004 ISBN 2-7328-6825-6
  • Michel Hubert / Jacques Pernet: Stade de Reims. Sa legend. Atelier Graphique, Reims 1992 ISBN 2-9506272-2-6
  • Klaus Leger, Just like Real Madrid once was ... The European Football Cup 1955-1964 , AGON, Kassel o.J. ISBN 3-89784-211-4
  • L'Équipe (ed.): Stade de Reims. Un club à la Une. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2006 ISBN 2-915535-41-8
  • Jules-César Muracciole: Batteux, l'homme du match. Film DVD, 2005
  • Lucien Perpère / Victor Sinet / Louis Tanguy: Reims de nos amours. 1931/1981 - 50 ans de Stade de Reims. Alphabet Cube, Reims 1981
  • Jacques and Thomas Poncelet: Supporters du Stade de Reims 1935-2005. Self-published, Reims 2005 ISBN 2-9525704-0-X

Remarks

  1. ^ "Ligue 1 - les 50 meilleurs entraîneurs de l'histoire" , France Football No. 3508 of July 2, 2013, pp. 32-38
  2. ↑ see the article "25 février 1955 - Batteux au pied levé" in France Football of February 25, 2014, p. 56
  3. ^ Pierre Delaunay / Jacques de Ryswick / Jean Cornu: 100 ans de football en France. Atlas, Paris 1983², ISBN 2-7312-0108-8 , pp. 207 and 211
  4. ^ A b Arnaud Ramsay / Paul Dietschy (Ed .: Ligue de Football Professionnel): Ligue 1 - 80 ans de football professionnel. Le championnat de France depuis 1932-1933. Solar, o. O. 2013, ISBN 978-2-263-06159-2 , p. 118
  5. ^ Raymond Kopa: Kopa. Jacob-Duvernet, Paris 2006 ISBN 2-84724-107-8 , pp. 73/74; Just Fontaine: Mes 13 vérités sur le foot. Solar, Paris 2006 ISBN 2-263-04107-9 , p. 73; Grégoire-Boutreau / Verbicaro, p. 58
personal data
SURNAME Batteux, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer coach and soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Reims
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 2003
Place of death Meylan