Amar Rouaï

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Members of the former FLN team in 1974: Amar Rouaï is fourth from the left in the back row

Amar Rouaï (born March 9, 1932 in Saint-Arnaud , Algeria ; † November 11, 2017 in Annemasse , France ) was a Franco-Algerian football player and coach .

Player career

Amar Rouaï was born and raised in Saint-Arnaud, then under French colonial ownership, the second largest city in the Sétif province after independence under the name El Eulma . As a 15-year-old he was a regular in the men's team at the local Mouloudia Club . From the position as a half- left or left runner , he steered the game "in a forward-looking manner and was particularly considered a master of the game of change and one who simply never wanted to lose".

In 1952 he went to mainland France , where he played for two years at the amateur club US Annemasse and from 1954 at the second division Racing Besançon . The team was never in danger of relegation during their three seasons there, but they never belonged to the top flight of the league. Then he got him with the SCO Angers, a club from the top division , which had even been in the national cup final immediately before and in Rouaï's first season (1957/58) behind France's "over-team", Stade Reims , tied with the second ( Olympique Nîmes ) and third place ( AS Monaco ) took fourth place in the final ranking. The Algerian gambler was at the side of comrades like Jules Sbroglia , Kazimir Hnatow , Stéphane Bruey and others there, too, with 27 point games and seven goals of his own - until he secretly left the country in an organized night and night action in April 1958 to compete for the newly launched football team of the FLN , the so-called “independence elf” of his homeland, during the Algerian War.

This team, made up almost entirely of players from French professional clubs, played a good 80 games between May 1958 and the turn of the year 1961/62, with which the independence movement FLN wanted to advertise the Algerian cause; Rouaï was used in well over 70 games. His best-known team-mates included the former French international players Abdelaziz Ben Tifour , Saïd Brahimi , Mustapha Zitouni , Rachid Mekhloufi and goalkeeper Abderrahman Ibrir, as well as other successful professional footballers such as Abderrahmane Boubekeur . Abdelhamid Kermali , Mohamed Maouche , Abderrahmane Soukhane or Ahmed Oudjani .

With the entry into force of the treaties of Évian and the independence of Algeria, 13 predominantly younger Algerian France professionals who had been used in the FLN selection, returned to the French league, mostly to their clubs of the spring of 1958. Amar Rouaï was one of these. When he “reported back” to the SCO Angers office, the first thing he received was a paycheck for the amount that the club still owed him for March and half of April 1958. For Angers he played 15 more matches in Division 1 in 1962/63 and scored one goal. He left France prematurely and played for USM Bel-Abbès for a short time in 1963 .

In July 1963, based on a recommendation from ex-national coach Kader Firoud against Egypt, he was also in his only A international match in Algeria's now officially recognized national team . He then ended his playing career at the age of 31 due to the long-term effects of food poisoning that he contracted on a trip with the FLN selection in Southeast Asia.

Stations as a player

  • MC Saint-Arnaud (1947–1952)
  • US Annemasse (1952-1954)
  • Racing Club Franc-Comtois Besançon (1954–1957)
  • SC de l'Ouest Angers (July 1957 – April 1958)
  • FLN selection (1958–1962)
  • SC de l'Ouest Angers (1962/63)
  • USM Bel-Abbès (1963)

As a trainer

Amar Rouaï worked as a football teacher until the mid-1990s. In this function he first trained his last teammates at USM Bel-Abbès, later the Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie , twice the Mouloudia Club Oran , Ghali Club Mascara , Rapide Club Relizane and the Libyan team from Africa Derna . Between 1975 and 1979 he was a member of the coaching staff for the Algerian Olympic team after his former FLN teammate Rachid Mekhloufi had made him his assistant in charge of promoting talent in the military selection process.

His Palmarès recorded an Algerian championship title in 1988 with the MC Oran and Algeria's victory at the Mediterranean Games in 1975 as Mekhloufi's assistant coach. After a long illness, Rouaï died at the age of 85 in November 2017 in Annemasse, the location of his first club in France. In his letter of condolence, FIFA President Gianni Infantino called him an “outstanding figure on the FLN team”.

literature

  • Marc Barreaud: Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du championnat professionnel français (1932-1997). L'Harmattan, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-7384-6608-7
  • 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.
  • Paul Dietschy / David-Claude Kemo-Keimbou (co-editors: FIFA): Le football et l'Afrique. EPA, o.r. 2008, ISBN 978-2-85120-674-9
  • 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

Web links

Notes and evidence

  1. ↑ Barreaud and Boisson / Vian (see the “Literature” section) use the notation “Rouiai”.
  2. ↑ a b c Article " Rouaï Amar (El Eulma) a 15 ans, il est déjà titulaire ... " from La Nouvelle République from March 29, 2006 at setif.info
  3. ↑ Barreaud, p. 80
  4. ↑ A photo of Rouaïs and four other players (Ben Tifour, Boubekeur, Mekhloufi and Zitouni) of the FLN team, taken on April 16, 1958 immediately after their arrival in Tunis , can be found in Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 95.
  5. ↑ According to Nait-Challal, p. 183, there were 76, according to Rouaï's short biography in Dernières Infos d'Algérie (see under web links ) 78 encounters.
  6. ↑ Barreaud, p. 61
  7. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 199
  8. ↑ The seasonal stakes and hit numbers in Barreaud, p. 80, match the total information in Boisson / Vian.
  9. ↑ after Rouaï's biography at Les légends du SCO Angers (see under web links )
  10. ↑ after the obituary at Dernières Infos d'Algérie (see under web links )
  11. ^ Obituary dated November 13, 2017 at tsa-algerie.com
  12. ↑ Article “ Letter of condolence from the FIFA President on the death of Amar Rouaï ” dated November 15, 2017 at huffpostmaghreb.com
personal data
SURNAME Rouaï, Amar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Algerian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Arnaud , French Algeria
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 2017
Place of death Annemasse , France