Breton football selection

Flag of brittany

The Breton football team ( French Équipe de Bretagne , Breton Skipailh Breizh ) are two different teams that represent the French region of Brittany in football. On the one hand, it is an official amateur selection of the Ligue de Bretagne de Football (LBF), the regionally responsible subdivision of the French football association FFF . This team has existed since before the First World War , and from 1932 to 1945 the use of professional footballers was also allowed in it.

In addition, there has recently been a second Breton selection for professional players who were born in Brittany or have family roots there. An independent organization, the Bretagne Football Association , was founded for this purpose.

The amateur selection

The early days

In 1911, the then largest of the competing French football associations , the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques (USFSA), launched a competition for regional teams . A team from Brittany also took part, for which players from the four Breton departments ( Finistère , Morbihan , Côtes-du-Nord and Ille-et-Vilaine ) were eligible to play, but also from Basse-Normandie , the south-bordering ones Loire-Atlantique , Vendée and possibly others. That is why the selection was officially called the Équipe de l'Ouest 'West Selection' at the time ; This name she carried until 1990. In the first edition, the team reached the semi-finals, in which they prevailed against the selection of Paris with 3: 1, in the subsequent final with the same result defeated the Elf of Languedoc and thus the first winner of this Competition was. In the final eleven were seven players from US Saint-Servan and four from Stade Rennes . Further results are not known, especially since the First World War also brought a large part of football activities to a standstill.

Between the world wars

As early as 1918, a year before the unified French federation FFF was founded, the Ligue de l'Ouest de Football Association (LOFA) was established in the west of the country as a regional association , which also encompasses historic Brittany and the south and east bordering departments of today's Pays de la Loire included. The LOFA put together a regional selection that took part in the now regularly held cup competition for the Coupe des Provinces de France . All footballers who competed for a club in the LOFA area were eligible to play, regardless of their nationality; with the introduction of professionalism (1932), professional players could also be included in this selection. For example, the Germans and Austrians playing at Stade Rennes such as Walter Kaiser , Walter Vollweiler and Franz Pleyer , but also the later French national coach Henri Guérin, have made several appearances in this team.

The West France selection, which is essentially made up of players from Breton clubs, has, as far as can be determined, the Coupe des Provinces not been able to win in these 25 years - whether the 2-1 victory over Normandy in March 1921, known as one of the few results , in one The final was successful, cannot be verified - but she even played against foreign national teams several times. These included at least six games against Luxembourg (1922, 1923 twice, 1924, 1925 and 1939) and one against Norway on November 1, 1923 in Rennes .

After 1945

In 1945 it was decided to use only amateur players in the regional selection teams; this determination is still valid in the present. It was not until decades later that professional footballers were able to play in a Breton selection again (see below ) . The now Ligue de l'Ouest de Football (LOF) called regional association was reduced in 1967 to the Loire-Atlantique , Vendée and Maine-et-Loire departments on the Atlantic coast, and in 1980 to Mayenne and Sarthe , so that from 1980 onwards it was only Breton Departments included. Even for the post-war decades, there is hardly any coherent information about the regional cup and the performance of the West French team. It is only known that the Breton youth team emerged as French champions once (1970) at the regional selection tournament, which took place annually until 1988, and also in 1988 (against the U-17 of Real Madrid ) and 1992 (against the Norwegian U-17 national team) won an international tournament (Eurofoot) in Saint-Brieuc .

On June 16, 1990, the LOF became the Ligue de Bretagne de football (LBF) and the West French also officially became the Breton selection. In place of the region joined Cup tournament, whose winner for the Cup of the Regions of the UEFA qualified. Only players who were members of a club from Brittany that did not compete higher than in the sixth class division d'honneur were allowed to be used . In recent times, the Breton national team has been in the French final of this competition several times, but left the place as a loser: 2000 against the selection of the Méditerranée region, in 2002 against Maine and in 2004 against Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The current coach of the Breton team is Gérard Bousquet .

The professional selection

prehistory

At a time in which Brittany was increasingly reflecting on its own history, language and culture, which was also reflected in militant actions - for example by the arms of Dispac'hel Breizh , the Breton Revolutionary Army ' or by broad sections of the population , successful fight against a planned nuclear power plant in Plogoff on the Pointe du Raz  - and expressed the demand for greater independence from the centralized French state, the idea of ​​a “real” Breton national team arose among the organizers of the Festival Interceltique in Lorient in 1972 best professional players. However, this could not be achieved in the short term because the French first and second division clubs were preparing for the season and hardly any of them were ready to deploy their players. On August 1, 1972, only a reinforced team from FC Lorient lost to Scottish FC Falkirk (1: 2), and the idea was not pursued intensively for a long time. An attempt by the cultural association Araok Vreizh to organize a tournament for the national teams of the Celtic regions of Europe failed in 1985, despite the support of several French national players such as Yannick Stopyra and Pierrick Hiard and the participation of the Welsh national team .

The goal was finally achieved by an initiative of the AS Brest sports club , which put together a selection of Breton players for an indoor game on December 30, 1988 and was able to sign an international opponent with the US national team . Brittany won the game with goals from Philippe Tibeuf ( AS Saint-Étienne , 3), Patrick Colleter ( Brest Armorique FC , 2) and Joël Cloarec ( Racing Paris ) 6-2.

Creation of the Brittany Football Association

Breton national team ahead of the 1998 game against Cameroon:

rear v. l. No. Le Guen, Heurtebis, PY David, Rouxel, Laspalles, Le Roux.
front v. l. No. Michel, André, Viaud, Brinquin, Pédron.

In July 1997, the Bretagne Football Association (BFA) was founded to represent the interests of Breton footballers. It is also committed to hosting national games and is planning to award the best Breton footballer each season with the “ Triskell d'or” . The BFA is not a member of the French FFF, but works with it. At the 1998 World Cup, this led to the Breton selection, with the express approval of the World Cup Organizing Committee under Fernand Sastre and Michel Platini, of World Cup participants who were preparing in the region available as training match opponents.

There was also an official international match between Brittany and the national team of Cameroon : on May 21, 1998, the two teams separated  1: 1 in Rennes . The match was broadcast live on Canal + ; Lionel Rouxel from En Avant Guingamp scored the goal of the "black devils" ("Les Diables Noirs" or "An Diaouled Du" is the name of the national selection because of their black and white striped dress according to the colors of the Breton flag ) .

The FFF, which, according to the rules of the World Football Association , has to release players from their clubs for games by other teams under certain conditions, generally grants this approval for the occasional, mostly charitable meetings of the Breton national team without any problems. On New Year 2000 in Nantes , the Bretons won a well-staffed indoor tournament in which they left FC Nantes behind. In 2001, however, the FFF temporarily banned a match between Brittany and Cuba in Angers ; this decision, which was made without giving any reason, meant that no active league player was allowed to wear the Breton dress without having to face sanctions. Then instead the professional game of Stade Rennes started that evening against the Cubans; the long-planned game was broadcast live on TV Breizh .

The coach Michel Audrain , who has been the team's supervisor since the beginning of 2011, can rely on a group of over 100 current players from the three top leagues ( Ligue 1 , Ligue 2 and National ) as well as a few hundred former professionals who are members of the BFA. Only players who meet one of the following conditions are considered Bretons:

• they are even in one of the four departments of Brittany mentioned above or in the Loire-Atlantique born
• a parent or grandparent was born in one of these five departments
• the player's first club in his youth comes from one of these five departments

The best-known players who have played for Brittany include the aforementioned Christian Gourcuff , Laurent Guyot , Tony Heurtebis , Paul Le Guen , Yvon Le Roux , Corentin Martins , Yvon Pouliquen , Ronan Salaün and Steve Savidan .

Current developments

The team competed in April 2007 in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire against the Africa Stars , a selection of ex-professional footballers of African origin. On May 20, 2008, the BFA selection in Saint-Brieuc played an international match against the national team of the Republic of the Congo , which they won 3-1. A meeting against Senegal in summer 2009 was planned . In May 2010, the selection took part in the Corsica Football Cup , where they were defeated by an island selection 0: 2, but won against Togo 2: 1. In early June 2011, she lost a game in Saint-Nazaire against Equatorial Guinea 1-0. In the run-up to the European Championship , the BFA had agreed to play against Ireland in Nantes for the end of May 2012 ; on May 28, 2013, Brittany played a charity match against the national team from Mali and won 1-0.

Supporters of several Breton football clubs had already joined forces in 2006 under the name Kop Breizh to support the Breton national team. The fact that the selection can also draw from a large pool of current league players is shown by the fact that, for example, in 2010/11 only from another French region ( Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur , i.e. in the jurisdiction of the Ligue de la Méditerranée ) more clubs compete in one of the top three French leagues than from Brittany: three first (Rennes, Lorient, Brest), two second (Vannes, Nantes) and two third division (Guingamp, Plabennec).

literature

• Georges Cadiou: Les grands noms du football breton. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2006 ISBN 2-84910-424-8

Web links

• Official website of the Brittany Football Association (French)
• Breton Football Page (French)

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Département Côtes-du-Nord was renamed Côtes-d'Armor in 1990; For the location of the departments and regions mentioned here and below, see this map .
2. ↑ So far there is no coherent description of the French competitions for regional teams either on the Internet or in print.
3. ↑ The Loire-Atlantique department was historically part of Brittany.
4. ↑ see http://nordpasdecalais.fff.fr/cg/6800/www/accueil/129013.shtml
5. ↑ see Bretagne #politik
6. ↑ The Triskell (the "tripod") is a Celtic symbol; see e.g. B. the flag of the Isle of Man .
7. ↑ see http://www.rsssf.com/intldetails/1998matches.html#oth
8. ↑ see FIFA Statutes, Article 8, Paragraph 3, under Archive Link ( Memento of the original from 23 September 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (there on p. 54) 
9. ↑ Article from Ouest-France from March 20, 2001 at http://bfa.ifrance.com/  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (click on "Revue de Presse" in the navigation on the left)  
10. ↑ Match report
11. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , there page 22; this PDF contains a lot of additional information about the Breton selection.  
12. ↑ see the announcement on the website of FC Nantes as well as the result report ( memento of the original from December 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Racing Lens website 
13. ↑ see archive link ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.