Christian Lopez

Lopez as a player in 1976

Christian Lopez (born March 15, 1953 in Aïn Temouchent / Algeria ) is a former French football player and coach .

The player career

In the club

Christian Lopez, who came to France with his parents from Algeria, France at the time , first played at AS Cannes at the end of the 1950s . As a youth he moved to AS Saint-Étienne in 1969 , where he was built up by the doyen of the successful French coaches , Albert Batteux , and then by the young trainer Robert Herbin as his own successor. The elegant Libero was particularly noted for his tackling and a good header game. As early as the 1973/74 season he played his way into the top line-up of the first division team , formed a strong central defense with the still young Vorstopper Oswaldo Piazza and at the end of this season won the Doublé with the Verts (the club's common name) , so national championship and cup .

Lopez repeated this double success with Saint-Étienne the following year, when he was appointed to the national team for the first time . He was only missing in the very last league game - and voluntarily: The team wanted to grant their coach Herbin the triumph again on the lawn, to be celebrated by the fans, and Lopez willingly cleared the libero position for the man who was essential to his meteoric rise had contributed.

In 1976 the third championship title followed in a row; this year he was also in the final of the European Cup with his club , which the Verts lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich .

In the years up to 1982, Christian Lopez added a fourth championship and a third cup title to his list of successes, was also in two other cup finals that AS Saint-Étienne did not win, and remained with the exception of the 1979/80 season (only 28 of the 38 League games) spared major injuries. He suffered what was possibly his darkest hour in the 1982 cup final: after 120 minutes it was 2-2 against Paris Saint-Germain ; then all the shooters met in the decisive penalty shoot-out - and as the sixth, the reliable Libero made the only miss of the team in the green jerseys. The alphabet of the footballers he played with during his 11 years at Saint-Étienne reads like a who's who of 1970s French football : Bathenay , Battiston , Ćurković , Janvion , Lacombe , Larios , Platini , Rep , H. Revelli , Rocheteau , Santini , Zimako ...

In 1982, right after the World Cup , he was signed by Toulouse FC , where he played in Division 1 for three more years , but was unable to win another title. After the 1985/86 season, which Lopez completed at the second-rate Montpellier La Paillade SC , he ended his playing career.

Stations

• AS Cannes (until 1969; as a teenager)
• AS Saint-Étienne (1969–1982, in the professional team from 1972)
• Toulouse FC (1982–1985)
• Montpellier La Paillade SC (1985/86, in the D2)

The national player

Between March 1975 and July 1982 Christian Lopez played 39 international matches for the Equipe Tricolore , also scored one goal and was team captain in 9 games. His problem with the Bleus was that his career ran almost simultaneously with that of Marius Trésor , so that Lopez was often set up in the unpopular pre-stopper position and occasionally even as a full -back. He was part of the French squad at the 1978 World Cup , where he was in the starting line-up in two of the three games and scored his only international goal in the game against Hungary . He was also at the 1982 World Cup , was on the field in the first two preliminary rounds, was only on the bench for the following three games and was only after an hour in the memorable semi-final in Seville against Germany and in the game for third place substituted in. After finishing 4th in Spain, Christian Lopez ended his career in the national team.

The coach Lopez

After 1986 he coached several amateur clubs, including in Montélimar and Bastia , and worked full-time in the insurance industry. Since 2001 he has coached the offspring of AS Cannes , from which he himself emerged, and now also the French U17 national team.

Palmarès

• French champion : 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981 (and runner-up in 1982)
• French cup winner : 1974, 1975, 1977 (and finalist 1981, 1982)
• European Champion Clubs' Cup : Finalist 1976; a total of 43 European Cup matches (2 goals)
• 39 international matches (1 goal); World Cup participant 1978 (2 missions) and 1982 (4 missions)
• 429 D1 appearances and 30 goals (350/23 for Saint-Étienne, 79/7 for Toulouse)