Football selection of the FLN

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The football selection of the FLN (also known as "Independence Elf", French Onze de l'indépendance , Arabic فريق جبهة التحرير الوطني لكرة القدم, DMG farīq ǧabhat at-taḥrīr al-waṭanī li-kurat al-qadam ) was a team that played football matches on behalf of the Algerian independence movement Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) to ensure the independence of the French colony as "ambassadors of the Algerian nation" to propagate and to attract international support. During the Algerian War between 1958 and 1962, the team played around 80 matches in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, and was very successful in terms of sport. It was made up of players who, until just before it was founded, mostly worked in the professional première division of the “mother country” France, and occasionally also for North African clubs. After Algeria gained independence, many of its 30 or so members worked as players, coaches or officials in the Algerian Football Association , which was founded in 1963 ; only a minority of them returned to the French professional leagues. Because of this personal continuity, the FLN selection is considered to be the legitimate predecessor of the Fennecs , the country's official national team , which many Algerians already considered them to be.

Historical background

Algeria had been part of the French colonial possessions in North Africa from the second half of the 19th century ; Since it was the main goal of the immigration of mainland French - but also numerous Spaniards and Italians - the area was politically and administratively tied increasingly closer to France. The settlement centers of Algiers , Oran , Constantine and Bône on the Mediterranean coast became the main places and prefectural seats of four departments , which were an integral part of the French state as "French Algeria" (Algérie française) . Within Algerian society, the relatives of European immigrants dominated, referred to in France as Algerian-French or Pieds-Noirs ("black feet") ; The civil administration and the occupying army were also firmly under European control.

The "National Liberation Front" FLN was the successor organization that emerged from the paramilitary organization Spéciale (OS) from 1947 and the Comité révolutionnaire d'unité et d'action (CRUA) from 1954, which worked out a plan for the war of independence against France, including the structural one and wanted to avoid strategic mistakes made in previous years. Although the start of the Algerian War can be dated back to 1954, the military clashes between armed forces of the local FLN and the French army took on a new quality after the Battle of Algiers (1957). The brutality of the "anti-revolutionary warfare" under General Salan and the repression of the administrative organs increased the support of large sections of the population for the FLN. The conflict affected all areas of life: on February 10, 1957, a bomb exploded in the football stadium in El Biar, killing eight fans, whereupon French spectators lynched three Algerians. This colonial war was overshadowed by a bloody "brotherly conflict" between the FLN and the Mouvement National Algérien (MNA) under Messali Hadj , which was mainly fought in France itself. For example, a FLN member killed Ali Chekkal , a member of the National Assembly, known as a “traitor” because of his moderate demeanor, on May 26, 1957, while he was attending the French Cup final on the main stand of the Paris Olympic Stadium at the side of President René Coty .

The process of decolonization, which was also painful for France as a result of the Indochina War - from the military defeat in Vietnam (1954) to the independence of Morocco and Tunisia to the Suez crisis (1956) - accelerated the end of the Fourth Republic ; on June 1, 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected Prime Minister with extraordinary powers. At the end of 1958, a UN resolution in favor of Algerian independence just failed because of the required two-thirds majority (35:18 with 28 abstentions); two years later, however, a corresponding decision was made with 63: 8 (: 27). In September 1959 de Gaulle announced that Algeria would be granted self-determination; From June 1960 negotiations began with representatives of the provisional government of Algeria in Melun . Although it however, was as significant even at parts especially the non-Arab population of Algeria resistances both in France - for example, formed in January 1961, the prokoloniale underground organization OAS , the first time in April of this year against de Gaulle's policy coup  - this process progressed .

With the entry into force of the Évian treaties after the referendums in France (April 8, 1962, 91% yes-votes) and Algeria (July 3, 1962, 99.7%), French rule ended; this was also the time when the FLN football selection was dissolved. It was replaced by the Algerian national team , which played its first official international match in January 1963 after the national football association, Fédération Algérienne de Football, became part of the world football association FIFA .

Algerians in French professional football

season Number of Algerian
professionals in
French clubs		 of which:
renegotiated
agreed
1947/48 15th 00
1949/50 16 02
1955/56 19th 03
1956/57 32 15th
1957/58 33 07th
1958/59 19th 07th
1960/61 15th 03
1961/62 12 03
1964/65 09 01
1969/70 07th 01

Football was already one of the preferred sports in Algeria in the first third of the 20th century, and not only among European immigrants but also among the indigenous population . In 1934 there were more registered players in the Algerian-French departments than in the greater Paris area. Since the First World War, numerous footballers from North Africa had been signed by the major French clubs. Olympique Marseille, for example, was considered a “branch of Algeria” in the 1930s, for which later national players such as Joseph Alcazar , Emmanuel Aznar , Abdelkader Ben Bouali and Mario Zatelli are best-known examples. After the Second World War, France's professional clubs increasingly used the Maghreb ; As in the 1930s, the majority of those newly signed were drawn to clubs in the south of France, and the majority were offensive players. The fact that North Africans were French nationals made it easier for the clubs to comply with the association's limit of initially two foreigners per team. In addition, they usually had to pay them less and got players of at least the same quality: In 1954, a North African selection beat France's national team 3-2 in the Paris Prinzenparkstadion, with two Maghrebians Abderrahman Mahjoub and Abdelaziz Ben Tifour winning the blue Dress of the French wore, while the French international Larbi Ben Barek acted as captain of the North Africa selection. The fact that the modest Algerian amateur league team SCU El Biar was able to eliminate the first division eleven from Stade Reims , who had risen to European importance and played with the best line-up, from the French cup competition in 1957 is an indication of the existence of a considerable talent pool on the south coast of the Mediterranean.

Of the 40 North African players signed in France between 1945 and 1955, 23 were Algerians. In 1956 and 1957 their number increased sharply, only to decrease rapidly from 1958 (see table on the right). In contrast, apart from a few exceptions, footballers from the francophone parts of sub-Saharan Africa, especially French West Africa , were not signed until the mid-1950s and only made up more than a third of all foreign players from the mid-1960s. At the beginning of the 21st century it is more the Algerian-born members of the second and third generation of immigrants, such as Zinédine Zidane or, more recently, Samir Nasri and Karim Benzema , who illustrate the importance of Algeria for French professional football. First division players who only had Algerian citizenship and came from a club there, there were only two left in 1991. However, these current examples also confirm that the two statements above still apply about the early years, according to which the Algerian heritage is to be found primarily in southern France and, in terms of football, in the offensive area.

Creation of the FLN team

The planning phase

In the autumn of 1957, after the Battle of Algiers , the management of the FLN decided to set up an “Algerian national team” in order to promote the independence of Algeria in other states. In the sporting sector, it was intended to supplement what had previously been achieved through the establishment of autonomous Algerian organizations in other areas (military, trade unions, student associations, cultural associations): to provide evidence that the country was capable of independent development, and at the same time the To create the prerequisites for a functioning community after the “victory of the revolution”. It was also hoped that it would have a positive impact on the morale of its own population. For this it seemed necessary to put together a really strong team, which is why it should consist of professionals. A current within the FLN leadership viewed football, especially professional football, as "part of the colonial legacy" that helps secure France's cultural hegemony . In the end, however, this position could not prevail. The official FLN communiqué of April 15, 1958 emphasized the importance of a successful team for the development of a “national identity” and praised the players as “consistent patriots who put the independence of their homeland above everything else and set an example for the Algerian youth Give courage, righteousness and selflessness ”.

The task of selecting the players was entrusted to Mohamed Boumezrag, at the time one of the board members of the Algerian regional association of the Fédération Française de Football (FFF), who later also coached them and looked after them while traveling. Politically, Mohamed Allam was responsible for planning and secrecy on the part of the FLN during the construction phase, then for travel logistics and the protection of the players. The organizers of this team could be reasonably certain that they would be able to recruit enough good players, because many of them had been supporting the FLN fight for a long time. Like numerous other Algerians working in France, they made regular payments, the “revolutionary tax” (we're talking about up to 15% of their players' salaries), and they were also behind the independence movement in terms of content. Mustapha Zitouni later explained this with the words

“I have a lot of friends in France, but the problem is bigger than any of us. What would you do if your country was at war and you were called? "

For reasons of confidentiality, Boumezrag personally visited every Algerian professional in question; In some cases, he also secured the support of teammates for the first contact, whom he already knew to be convinced. Although he exerted a certain moral pressure in the talks, the addressees apparently had no serious reprisals to fear if they did not want to comply with his request. He received rejections, for various reasons, for example from Kader Firoud , Salah Djebaïli (both at Olympique Nîmes ), Ahmed Arab ( FC Limoges ) or Mahi Khennane ( Stade Rennais UC ).

April 1958: On secret routes to Tunis

In the spring of 1958, the preparations were completed - including organizing the departure of relatives of the players to Tunisia as inconspicuously as possible - so that the team could be presented to the public. The time for this was chosen by the FLN with regard to the media and psychological effects. The championship and cup competition in France were at their crucial stage in April, and there was also growing public interest in the French national team looking to prepare for the finals of the World Cup in Sweden with a game against Switzerland on April 16 - France should feel what it had in its Algerians. Mustapha Zitouni and Rachid Mekhloufi were in the preliminary World Cup line-up for the Bleus for this tournament, which began less than two months after the FLN selection was presented; The latter had also become military world champion with the French army selection in the summer of 1957 . These intentions of the FLN were the reason that Zitouni's request to postpone the action until after the World Cup was not taken into account.

On April 8, 1958, Boumezrag notified all players of the time of their departure for Tunis , the seat of the Algerian Provisional Government, where the FLN selection was to be presented to the public. He also sent them travel plans and specific advice on what to do, especially for any critical encounters with police officers and border officials. On April 13 and 14, respectively, twelve Algerian footballers (Aribi, Bekhloufi, Ben Tifour, Boubekeur, Bouchouk, Brahimi, Chabri, Kermali, Maouche, Mekhloufi, Rouaï, Zitouni - for more details see below, "The selection players" ) left in small groups , sometimes alone, secretly their place of residence and their club in France. Rome was agreed as the meeting point with Boumezrag ; one group took the train directly to Italy, another by private car through Switzerland. This second group did not reach Tunis until April 20, due to visa problems - the French government tried in the meantime with diplomatic and secret service means to stop the player exodus - the two players traveling alone (Hacène Chabri and Mohamed Maouche) even much later.

Maouche wanted to meet the Swiss group in Lausanne , but missed it. Since he was still serving in the French army, he feared that after 48 hours he would be put out for a search for desertion and therefore wanted to return to France before this period had expired. However, he is said to have been arrested at the border and detained for a good month. However, he was spared a military court hearing afterwards. He did not join the FLN selection until the end of 1960.

Chabri was arrested in Menton , on the border with Italy, where French officials questioned him. At the time, Algerians were under general suspicion of bringing weapons or large amounts of money out of the country to support the FLN. Since the footballer withheld the real reason for crossing the border and could not give the police officers a convincing explanation, he was brought to Marseille , imprisoned, later - when his real motive for travel was long known - charged and charged with "impairing the security of the state" ( atteinte à la sûreté de l'État) also convicted. He was serving his sentence in a prison camp near Algiers and was only able to get to Tunis via detours in October.

The players who arrived in time were received in Tunis by the provisional Prime Minister Ferhat Abbas and Tunisia's head of state Habib Bourguiba and presented to the press. Other France professionals declared their support in the days and weeks that followed. Apparently the secrecy had succeeded in advance; the subsequent media response was as huge as the FLN had hoped. L'Équipe's April 15 headline read "9 Algerian Footballers Disappeared"; A few days later France Football even devoted four pages to the subject. The public discussion about this step was controversial. The clubs concerned terminated their player contracts without notice and the association withdrew their licenses. To this end, the FFF issued a statement, the key words of which were:

“Our association officials are steeped in trust in the future of football in our expensive North African provinces. ... The local players are hungry and bite the bread of the football that we give them. "

However, there were also numerous voices in the country who expressed understanding for the athletes' steps, for example because they were critical or hostile to colonial policy - including the French. This also included footballers: a number of national players, including Kopa , Fontaine and Piantoni , signed a postcard with best regards to Zitouni in Sweden at the end of June.

Start with obstacles

In Tunis, the team soon started regular training, mostly under the direction of Boumezrags and Aribis, and later also Ben Tifour. Their first official game as - according to their own understanding - the Algerian national team took place on May 9, 1958 against Morocco's A selection and ended with a 2-1 victory. Two days later, the team in the national colors (green shirts, white shorts and green socks) defeated Tunisia 6-1. Khaldi Hammadi, an Algerian defender living in Tunisia , added the ten professionals; the problem that these were almost exclusively offensive forces was solved by the "retraining" of Bekhloufi as a defender. The FLN selection made its first trip to Libya in June . In August, a group of six from France joined the team (Bouchache, Smaïn Ibrir, Mazzouz, the Soukhane brothers, Zouba), followed by Doudou and Haddad in autumn 1958. In 1960 another eleven players from France joined the team.

The professional footballers who had been earning decently up to then received financial support from the FLN during the four years in addition to travel expenses. That was also necessary because only a handful of players could get really rich in the French Division 1 (only Mustapha Zitouni and, to a limited extent, Rachid Mekhloufi from the Independence Elf), while the vast majority received little more than a skilled worker or employee, of which themselves did not allow large reserves to be built up. Every player, whether single or married, was reimbursed by the FLN for rent and all ancillary costs for a furnished new apartment in Tunis, plus clothing, shoes and all of the sports equipment and a monthly fee of FF 50,000  (which, based on today's purchasing power, would be around 800 euros). For most of them this was even more than what they previously earned; only for Zitouni, who had recently received around 150,000 FF per month from his club and who had an even higher offer from Real Madrid , it meant a noticeable deterioration. In addition to the material aspect, it was above all the personal conviction to do the right thing in a war that had claimed victims in almost every family, as Mohamed Maouche , for example , found in retrospect:

“I can say that none of us have regretted [his contribution]. ... We were revolutionaries. I fought for independence. "

The behavior of the international football federations initially turned out to be a problem at the end of matches: Algeria had applied for membership of the world federation (FIFA) in May 1958 , but was not allowed to join either FIFA or the African continental federation (CAF). In response to early intervention by the French association FFF, FIFA threatened its members with sanctions on 7 May if they allowed matches against the FLN selection. After the Algerians had completed a tour of Morocco at the end of 1958, FIFA closed the Moroccan association . Its chairman then distanced himself from the Maghreb neighbors, claiming that these games had come about without his approval and only at the express request of the Moroccan King Mohammed V ; FIFA then lifted Morocco's ban at the end of April 1959, which prompted the French association to protest again.
The team also received little support from the CAF, which was based in Cairo and whose first two presidents were Egyptians: it had already arrived in Egypt in January 1959, but did not find a single opponent there, nor a club team or a city selection. On the African continent, only Tunisia and Libya, which had been suspended by FIFA for a long time, offered the stage to present their attractive style of play, characterized as "lively and aggressive". Of course, it must be taken into account that the continental football associations themselves, despite partial autonomy, also belong to FIFA and are subject to its regulations. In addition, large parts of Africa were still dependent on colonial powers . Nait-Challal adds two assumptions, which is why there was not a single encounter with Egyptian teams until 1962. First, the Egyptian association feared that its sporting supremacy in the region could be damaged if its own national team or the dominant clubs did badly against the Algerians. Second, after the Suez crisis , the Nasser government wanted to avoid giving international cause for diplomatic irritation. This could also explain why the FLN selection found no opponents in Syria despite repeated inquiries : Syria and Egypt had been closely linked in a political union, the United Arab Republic , since February 1958 .

The selection players

Soccer Field Transparant.svg

Boubekeur
(AS Monaco)
Hammadi
(Stade Tunis)
Zitouni
Bekhloufi
(AS Monaco)
Aribi
(RC Lens)
Rouaï
(SCO Angers)
Mekhloufi
(AS St.Étienne)
Ben Tifour
(AS Monaco)
Kermali
(Olymp.Lyon)
Brahimi
Bouchouk
(Toulouse FC)
The regular eleven until mid-1959
(in brackets: previous club)

Goalkeepers Abderrahmane Boubekeur ( AS Monaco ) and Abderrahman Ibrir (Ex- Olympique Marseille ), defender Mustapha Zitouni (Monaco) and Abdelaziz, who were used as outside runners and strikers, were among the most prominent professional footballers who have played for this team in the past four years Ben Tifour (Monaco), Saïd Brahimi ( Toulouse FC ), Abdelhamid Kermali ( Olympique Lyon ), Mohamed Maouche ( Stade Reims ), Rachid Mekhloufi ( AS Saint-Étienne ) and Ahmed Oudjani ( RC Lens , like Ibrir and Maouche from 1960). Five of them had previously played full international matches for France, namely Ibrir, Zitouni, Ben Tifour, Brahimi and Mekhloufi.

Other members of the selection were Saïd Amara ( AS Béziers ), Mokhtar Arribi / Aribi (a) (Lens, then coach at AS Avignon ), Kaddour Bekhloufi (Monaco), Ali Benfadah ( SCO Angers ), Chérif Bouchache, Hocine Bouchache (both Le Havre AC ), Abdelhamid Bouchouk (Toulouse), Mohamed Bouricha ( Olympique Nîmes ), Hacène Bourtal (Béziers), Hacène Chabri (Monaco), Dahmane Defnoun (Angers), Ali Doudou ( USM Bône / Algeria), Saïd Haddad (Toulouse), Khaldi Hammadi ( Stade Tunisien / Tunisia), Smaïn Ibrir (Le Havre), Abdelkrim Kerroum ( AS Troyes-Savinienne ), Abdelkader Mazzouz / Mazouza (a) (Nîmes), Mokrane Oualiken ( SO Montpellier ), Amar Rouaï / Rouiaï (a) (Angers), Abdallah Hedhoud, called "Settati" ( Girondins Bordeaux ), Abderrahmane Soukhane , Mohamed Soukhane (both Le Havre) and Abdelhamid Zouba ( Chamois Niort ).

(a) Both name spellings occur several times in the sources.

For the FLN-Elf no complete team line-ups of the individual games are available, but by around mid-1959 - that is, during the first 45 games - a core formation as shown below had developed.

Injuries as a result of the sometimes strenuous tour stresses and the newcomers arriving later meant that the team changed their face and their game system over time. From the East Asia trip from October to December 1959, the World Cup system was switched to a 4-3-3 ; Abdelhamid Zouba Hammadi replaced Zouba Hammadi in defense and Mohamed Soukhane also moved into central defense, for which Bouchouk was not a striker. Mohamed Soukhane's brother Abderrahmane replaced Brahimi in the attack, and Ali Doudou guarded the goal instead of Boubekeur. With the arrival of other players, individual changes or additions were made from 1960 (see right) .

Soccer Field Transparant.svg

Doudou
(USM Bône)
Zouba
(Cham.Niort)
Zitouni
(AS Monaco)
M. Soukhane
(Le Havre AC)
Bekhloufi
(AS Monaco)
or Defnoun (SCO Angers)
Aribi
(RC Lens)
Ben Tifour
(AS Monaco)
Rouaï
(SCO Angers)
or Maouche (Stade Reims)
Kermali
(Olymp.Lyon)
Mekhloufi
(AS St.Étienne)
A. Soukhane
(Le Havre AC)
or Oudjani (RC Lens), Amara (AS Béziers)
The regular eleven from autumn 1959
(with additions from mid-1960)

Of the total of 30 Algerian France professionals who had been used in the Independence Elf, only 13 (mostly the younger ones) returned to the French league in 1962, mostly to their clubs from spring 1958. As far as is known, their return was positively received by club boards and spectators . On his first visit to the SCO Angers office in 1962, Amar Rouaï was the first to receive a paycheck for the amount that the club still owed him for March and half of April 1958.

At least eight of the selection players were appointed to the Algerian national team, which was newly formed in 1963, and were also involved in several of the four international matches that were among the very early highlights of the Fennecs - "Desert Foxes" is a name for the national team there:

  • on February 28, 1963 in a 4-0 win against Czechoslovakia : Amara, Boubekeur, Defnoun, Mekhloufi, Oudjani, A. Soukhane, M. Soukhane
  • on January 1, 1964 in a 2-0 win against Germany : Amara, Boubekeur, Mekhloufi, Oudjani, A. Soukhane, Zitouni
  • on November 4, 1964 in a 2-2 draw against the USSR : Boubekeur, Defnoun, Mekhloufi, Oudjani, A. Soukhane, M. Soukhane, Zitouni
  • on June 17, 1965 in a 3-0 draw against Brazil : Defnoun, Mekhloufi, Oudjani, A. Soukhane, Zitouni

Mekhloufi, who last played for Algeria as a player in December 1968, had been national coach with interruptions since the 1970s - and even president of the national football association for a few months in 1988 - and in this role one of the main victims of the German-Austrian " Gijón Non-Aggression Pact " of the 1982 World Cup . Amara, Ben Tifour, A. Ibrir, Kermali, Maouche and Zouba (last in 2003) also held this coaching position after 1962, at least for a short time.

Sporting record

In medium blue those states u. In which the FLN selection has played games; in Algeria (dark blue), understandably, it never did.

Despite the international restrictions, the FLN selection has played against a number of European and Asian city and club teams, but also against A, military and junior national teams in the four years of its existence. To do this, she traveled to a country, had several encounters there within a relatively short time and then returned to Tunisia. However, there were also three particularly long tours: May to July 1959 (20 games in Bulgaria , Romania , Hungary , Poland , the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia ), October to December 1959 (11 games in the People's Republic of China and North Vietnam ) and March to June 1961 (21 games in Yugoslavia , Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia). The team always insisted that the flags be hoisted and the national anthems played before kick-off - both of which were not yet official insignia of Algerian independence at the time.

Your opponents came from the following countries (the number of games played in brackets): Tunisia (8), Libya (8), Morocco (6), Bulgaria (9), Czechoslovakia (8), Romania (7), Hungary (6 ), Yugoslavia (5), Soviet Union (5), Poland (1), Iraq (6), PR China (5), North Vietnam (5) and Jordan (4). Of the Eastern European members of the Warsaw Pact , the FLN selection only did not travel to the GDR ; Reasons for this are not given in the literature.
Although they could not play any home games in Algeria, the team achieved excellent results against internationally strong opponents, namely successes in Yugoslavia (6: 1, where they also had to admit defeat 0: 3), Hungary (6: 2) and the CSSR (6: 0). Against “footballing developing countries” there were some real runaway victories , such as an 11-0 win in Jordan, a 10-1 win in Iraq and a 7-0 win in North Vietnam. She conceded her first defeat in May 1959 (0-1 against Botev Plovdiv ), her highest in the same year with 1-5 against a Chinese provincial selection.

The players were quite divided about the sporting value of many of these encounters; there was even dissatisfaction with too easily achieved successes. Rachid Mekhloufi put it similarly, albeit more differently, in 1967:

“For four years… I played games that were too easy and never trained that hard. I had lost the sense of the effort and the need to fight. On the other hand, I learned a lot by getting to know other attitudes, such as the creativity of the Hungarians ... or the joy of playing and simplicity [of the Asians] - qualities that we have somewhat forgotten. "

Games against senior national teams
date opponent Result
May 3, 1958
"Training game" 		Tunisia 5: 1
May 9, 1958 Morocco 2: 1
May 11, 1958 Tunisia 6: 1
March 1959 Tunisia 4-0
May 20, 1959 Bulgaria 3: 4
November 1959 North Vietnam 5-0
January 1960 Libya 7-0
March 29, 1961 Yugoslavia 6: 1
April 1961 Bulgaria 1: 3
May 1961 Romania 5: 2
May / June 1961 Hungary 2: 2

The fact that there were no opponents from the western world can be explained beyond the FIFA verdict by the strict "bloc thinking" in this heyday of the Cold War , in which the Western powers, together with their allies and the Eastern bloc, were so irreconcilable that even a cultural or sporting crossing of the " iron curtain " remained the absolute exception. Hardly any state could remain neutral; the movement of the non-aligned states was not founded until September 1961. Of the 14 states in which the FLN selection took place, twelve had voted for Algerian autonomy in the UN General Assembly in 1958 (see above, “Historical Background” ) .

The total number of games is controversial, which is probably due to the fact that, from the perspective of the international associations, it was not an official match, no incontestable statistics were kept and occasionally - from 1959, due to the growing number of players - two games were played simultaneously . The information given by Nait-Challal is best documented: He comes to 83 games, which he breaks down according to years and countries of origin of the opposing teams; there are also numerous individual results with him. After that, the FLN team won 57 games, drew 14 times and lost twelve games; the goal difference was 349: 119. Other sources available come to 53 (39 wins, ten draws and four defeats), 62 (47 wins, eleven draws, four defeats with a total goal difference of 246: 66) or even 91 games (65 wins, 13 draws and 13 defeats each, goal difference total 385: 127). Apart from the differences in detail, all of these results show that the Independence Elf played a dangerous and successful game. As far as spectator numbers can be found for individual games, the stadiums in which she appeared were always very well filled, often even sold out. Their victory over the Yugoslav national team, for example, was attended by 80,000 spectators in the Red Star Belgrade stadium , and their 2-2 draw against Petrolul Bucharest was even attended by 90,000. The fact that their appearances as former professionals who had dedicated themselves to the revolutionary cause were widely advertised in propaganda terms contributed to this. In addition, the players also regularly confirmed their reputation for playing really good football.

Many opposing teams gave the Algerians nothing in terms of sport; Before and after the games, however, the guests always felt welcome - with the one exception Poland in the summer of 1959, where the team rejected their assigned quarters in Łódź as unreasonable on the day of arrival . She couldn't find a restaurant that was open that evening, and the hosts hadn't planned a reception or even a banquet. The following day, Polish officials declared their refusal to fly the Algerian flag and play the national anthems before the evening kick-off, which they justified with the FIFA ban and traditionally good relations with France. They only gave in when the Algerian players made no move to leave the stadium's dressing room. After this game, both sides agreed to end this part of the tour prematurely.

Members of the former FLN team in 1974:
standing : a supervisor, Doudou, Zouba, Rouaï, Amara, Zitouni, M. Soukhane, Bouricha, Oudjani, Boubekeur
crouching : Mazzouz, Kerroum, Benfadah, Bouchouk, A. Soukhane, Kermali, Mekhloufi, Oualiken (from left to right)

In contrast, the FLN selection stayed in China at the invitation of the local government for three weeks longer than intended at the end of their East Asian tour. The players took advantage of this for an extended tour of the country and in return were happy to demonstrate the secrets of their ball control to local coaches at the National Sports Institute in Beijing . On the subsequent return flight, the team made a stopover in the Federal Republic of Germany over the Christmas days of 1959 , where they were invited by representatives of Eintracht Frankfurt to attend a league game in which the Algerians, as guests of honor in the Riederwald Stadium , won a 4-1 victory on December 27 over the Karlsruher SC .

The team completed their last encounters around the turn of the year 1961/62 in Libya. Due to political developments, she had largely lost her role as ambassador for Algerian independence; In addition, in view of the terror of the OAS, the Bizerta crisis (from July 1961) and the continued massive action by French security forces against Algerians - as on July 5 in Algiers and October 17, 1961 in Paris  - it was not without danger for representatives of the liberation movement to go on a journey. During the coming months the players worked partly as coaches for clubs in Tunisia and Libya, partly they began training or enjoyed doing nothing. It was not until June 1962 that the FLN finally adopted the players; On June 29, the FFF lifted its ban on playing against those professionals who "had left their club if they made themselves available again".
At one point, however, the original core of the FLN selection came together almost completely: in December 1970, nine of the first ten footballers from April 1958, reinforced by eleven other former teammates, played a farewell game for their teammate who had been injured three weeks earlier in Algiers in front of 20,000 spectators Abdelaziz Ben Tifour.

Later reception

The role of this selection team in gaining independence has been highlighted in Algeria since 1962. Algeria's first president, FLN co-founder Ahmed Ben Bella , who himself briefly played football at Olympique Marseille in 1940, repeatedly pointed out the importance of the team in speeches. The 50th anniversary of its foundation in mid-April 2008 gave rise to numerous commemorative events, television specials and honors for former players. On one of these occasions, the President of the Republic, Abdelaziz Bouteflika said:

"You wrote one of the most beautiful chapters in Algerian history, the anti-colonial struggle and sport in general."

The Algerian Post has issued a first day cover and a postcard with two photos of the team on this occasion (see below, “Weblinks”) . FIFA President Joseph Blatter , personally invited by Rachid Mekhloufi, was absent from the official anniversary event because his “packed schedule unfortunately did not allow a trip to Algeria at this time”.

In the novel Le Vainqueur de coupe by Rachid Boudjedra (Denoël, Paris 1981), the eleven and especially their “head” Mekhloufi are at the center; The French football historians Pierre Lanfranchi and Alfred Wahl have also published essays in specialist journals about Mekhloufi and the team . The newer football literature produced for a larger market in France, on the other hand, is usually limited to a few lines on this topic and mostly only mentions the fact that individual club teams had to cope with a personal bloodletting shortly before the end of the 1957/58 season. France's later national coach Michel Hidalgo , then a striker at AS Monaco, dedicates only five sentences to the process in his autobiography published in 2007, mainly complaining that his team was defeated by the five Algerians "in the decisive phase of the 1957/58 season Been let down ". On the website of Monaco's club there is at least a hint of regret about their departure: "Unfortunately, the Algerian war robbed the AS of their brilliant North African players ...". It can be assumed that the attitude that the Algerian players “only did their duty” (according to Bordeaux's then mayor Jacques Chaban-Delmas after Settati returned to Girondins Bordeaux) has remained a minority position in France to this day. The famous saying by President de Gaulle (“You are France!”) To the two-time Saint-Étienner scorer Mekhloufi after the French Cup final in 1968 remained a snapshot. Only on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the FLN selection did two book titles appear there specifically on this chapter of Algerian-French sports history (see below, "Literature") .

On October 6, 2001 - a good 39 years after the end of colonial dependency - the first official men's international match between France and Algeria took place. In the run-up to this friendly match, the media in both countries occasionally reminded of the Algerian selection. However, the main focus was on the history of the conflict, which has not yet been comprehensively dealt with, and the current status of the relationship between Algerians and French, which is particularly evident in the living situation of Algerian-Muslim immigrants in France. The hope of some commentators that this football game in the sold-out Stade de France would be a “celebration of understanding” and a “chance for the two countries to come closer” ( Lilian Thuram ) after a “painful and long-suppressed separation process” was not fulfilled. After the playing of the national anthems was lost in a whistle concert, the storming of the field by spectators, including numerous French of Algerian origin, led to the encounter being broken off in the 76th minute. On the following day, L'Équipe ran an ambiguous headline “An interrupted story”, while Liberation's headline was “France-Algeria, 40 years of abandonment”. A French national team, which is often referred to as “black-blanc-beurs” (“blacks, whites, Maghrebians”) due to its composition in wordplay based on the colors of the national flag (bleu-blanc-rouge) , did not succeed either to make the existing social and political contradictions forgotten for at least 90 minutes. On the other hand, Algeria's striker Farid Ghazi expressed the hope that “one day he will still be able to play such a game”.

literature

Two new releases from 2008 especially for this team:

  • Kader Abderrahim: L'indépendance comme seul but. Paris Mediterranée, o. O. 2008 ISBN 2-84272-308-2 (only available in extracts when the article was created)
  • Michel Nait-Challal: Dribbleurs de l'indépendance. L'incroyable histoire de l'équipe de football du FLN algérien. Ed. Prolongations, o. O. 2008 ISBN 978-2-916400-32-7

Also published at the end of 2008 with a separate chapter on the "Independence Self":

  • Paul Dietschy / David-Claude Kemo-Keimbou (co-editors: FIFA): Le football et l'Afrique. EPA, o. O. 2008 ISBN 978-2-85120-674-9

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Gastaut, p. 2
  2. ↑ cf. already in the book title with Michaud; Pierre Bezbakh: Petit Larousse de l'histoire de France. Des origines à nos jours. Larousse, op. 2003 ISBN 978-2-03-505369-5 , p. 674; in German, for example Wilfried Loth: History of France in the 20th Century. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1992 ISBN 3-596-10860-8 , pp. 170f., And Heinz Köller / Bernhard Töpfer: France. A historical outline. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1978 ISBN 3-7609-0407-6 , p. 646
  3. ↑ Michaud, pp. 95ff.
  4. ↑ Slimane Chikh: L'Algérie en armes ou le temps des certitudes. OPU, Algiers 1981, p. 104
  5. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 11-13 and 123
  6. ↑ Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 97 (with the incorrect date 29 May)
  7. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 132 and 169
  8. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 188ff.
  9. ↑ On the topic of football in French North Africa as a whole, cf. Roland H. Auvray: Le livre d'or du football pied-noir et north africain. Maroc – Algérie – Tunisie. Presses du Midi, Toulon 1995 ISBN 2-87867-050-7
  10. ↑ Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 57ff.
  11. ^ Pierre Lanfranchi / Matthew Taylor: Moving with the ball. The migration of professional footballers. Berg, Oxford / New York 2001 ISBN 1-85973-307-7 , p. 172
  12. ↑ This topic is the focus of Gastaut's essay, which focuses on the Algerian-French relationship, but has been extended to the present day.
  13. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 147
  14. ↑ Barreaud, p. 279
  15. ↑ Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 286
  16. ↑ Gastaut, p. 2; The French federation does not count this defeat among its official internationals, which is why L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 366, treats it under the heading “Les matches oubliés” (The forgotten games) and the North Africa selection as “Africains de France “ (Africans of France) .
  17. ↑ L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007 ISBN 978-2-915535-62-4 , pp. 209-213
  18. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, pp. 130/131
  19. ↑ Table after Barreaud, p. 61
  20. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 130; Barreaud, p. 66
  21. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 250
  22. ↑ Proven to the present in Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 269f. and 294.
  23. ↑ The thesis mentioned on http://www.rsssf.com/tablesa/alg-fln-intres.html that it was originally a private initiative that the FLN only later adopted is not available from any other source approved.
  24. ↑ Goldblatt, p. 504, sees this attitude in the context of Frantz Fanon's demand “The colonized peoples should win, but they should achieve this without barbarism” (Frantz Fanon: Sociologie d'une révolution. Maspero, Paris 1960, p. 10) .
  25. ↑ Lanfranchi, p. 71
  26. ^ Declaration printed in Le Monde of April 22, 1958, quoted in Lanfranchi, p. 71
  27. ↑ Gastaut, p. 4; http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804141731.html?page=2 ; Nait-Challal, pp. 125f.
  28. ↑ https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868402,00.html ; Nait-Challal, p. 36
  29. ^ "I have many friends in France, but the problem is bigger than us. What do you do if your country is at war and you get called up? "  - Article" The Disappearing Act "from TIME at https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868402,00 .html
  30. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 51 and 80; the thesis of threatened reprisals can only be found in Michel Hidalgo: Le temps des bleus. Mémoires. Jacob-Duvernet, Paris 2007 ISBN 978-2-84724-146-4 , p. 50
  31. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 138
  32. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 318
  33. ↑ On March 13th, Sélectionneur Paul Nicolas had named a first circle of players, which he announced on April 9th ​​with some changes as the official preselection; Zitouni and Mekhloufi were included in both lists. - Faouzi Mahjoub: Le football africain. ABC, Paris 1977, chapter “1958–1962: FLN. Les footballeurs de la Révolution. "(Without page numbers)
  34. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 275
  35. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 51
  36. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 47
  37. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 278, and Nait-Challal, p. 17, name them; L'Équipe, France Football 59, p. 12, Gastaut, p. 4, Goldblatt, p. 503, and Abderrahim (in the short description of the contents at http://www.amazon.fr/Lind%C3%A9pendance-comme- seul-Kader-Abderrahim / dp / 2842723082 / ref = sr_11_1? ie = UTF8 & qid = 1214227730 & sr = 11-1 ) speak of nine players; on the other hand, according to Barreaud, p. 61, and Lanfranchi, p. 70, ten, also according to http://www.rsssf.com/tablesa/alg-fln-intres.html . The difference is due to the fact that most of the sources apparently refer to the number of arrivals in Tunis and that Aribi is not included in the calculation because at that time he was no longer a player but a coach. If Chabri and Maouche had also reached Tunis, there would have been a total of twelve people.
  38. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated July 12, 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. ; only according to Barreaud, p. 78, Maouche is said to have played for the selection from summer 1958 to mid-1959.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sebbar.oldiblog.com
  39. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 13f., 19–25, 41–43 and 94/95 (on the two groups), pp. 80/81 (on Maouche), pp. 16/17 and 126 (on Chabri)
  40. ↑ Pierre Lanfranchi / Alfred Wahl: The Immigrant as Hero: Kopa, Mekloufi and French Football. in: The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. XIII, No. 1, March 1996, p. 123
  41. ^ Hubert Beaudet: Le Championnat et ses champions. 70 ans de Football en France. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2002 ISBN 2-84253-762-9 , p. 60 - either the editors of L'Équipe actually only knew of nine players at the time of going to press or they counted Aribi, who recently became the coach and was no longer a player, not to that (see also a few comments on this). This report from L'Humanité of April 19, 2003 also shows the reactions in France .
  42. ↑ France Football of April 22, 1958, pp. 3 and 11-13
  43. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 278
  44. ↑ “La foi dans l'avenir du football dans nos chères provinces north africaines pénètre leurs dirigeants… Les joueurs indigènes mordent à pleines dents dans le pain du football que nous leur distribuons.”  - Nait-Challal, p. 118; It is not clear whether it was a press release or an internal association statement.
  45. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 118
  46. ↑ An early photo of the team (without Hammadi, but with Boumezrag) can be found on the front cover and in the photo section by Nait-Challal.
  47. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 105-109, 114-120 and 166-169
  48. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, pp. 115–117
  49. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 102/103; on Zitouni pp. 50 and 112
  50. ↑ "Avec le recul du temps, je peux dire qu'aucun d'entre nous ne regrette. Nous… étions révolutionnaires. J'ai lutté pour l'indépendance. ”  - http://www.humanite.fr/2001-10-06_Sports_-1958-les-ambassadeurs-de-la-revolution-algerienne
  51. ↑ http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804100418.html ; Nait-Challal, p. 111; Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 95
  52. ↑ Lanfranchi, p. 71; Nait-Challal, pp. 131 and 135f .; Goldblatt, p. 504, formulates this "... playing with élan, bravado and style" .
  53. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 135/136; similar to Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 95
  54. ↑ to http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804141731.html?page=3 , supplemented from Nait-Challal
  55. ^ Nait-Challal, p. 159
  56. ↑ Barreaud, p. 61
  57. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 199
  58. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 204f .; Lineup of the USSR game from http://www.rusteam.permian.ru/history/1964_07.html
  59. ↑ A map of these tours can be found in Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 360.
  60. ↑ all information on number, opponents and game results compiled from Nait-Challal, pp. 106–177
  61. ^ Nait-Challal, p. 123
  62. ↑ "Pendant quatre ans, j'ai été un footballeur ... disputant des matchs trop faciles, suivant des entraînements sans rigueur. J'avais perdu le goût de l'effort, la nécessité de lutter. Cependant, j'ai beaucoup appris en regardant les autres, en voyant les Hongrois, à l'invention créatrice toujours neuve,… En Chine, au Viêt-nam, j'ai appris… la joie de jouer et la simplicité dans le jeu, des qualités que nous avons un peu tendance à négliger. ”  - Lanfranchi, p. 72
  63. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 183, which is also followed by the preceding statistical information in this chapter. However, he mentions a total of 92 games with results in the text; He declared some of them as training games, including the one on May 3, 1958 against Tunisia's A-Elf (see the table above).
  64. ^ 53 after Paul Darby: Africa, Football and FIFA: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance. Tayler and Francis, 2002, ISBN 0-7146-8029-X , p. 29, here excerpts online; 62 to http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804141731.html?viewall=1 ; 91 according to http://www.rsssf.com/tablesa/alg-fln-intres.html
  65. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 150/151 and 162/163. Details on the KSC game according to Werner Skrentny (ed.): When Morlock still met the moonlight. The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963. Klartext, Essen 1993 ISBN 3-88474-055-5 , p. 191, and a message from the "Eintracht Museum" dated July 1, 2008 to the main author; a match report can also be found on the website of the Eintracht archive (there under “seasons” and then “season 1959/60”).
  66. ↑ "... lever la suspension des joueurs algériens professionnels ayant quitté leur club dès qu'ils se mettraient à nouveau à leur disposition ..."  - Dietschy / Kemo-Keimbou, p. 103
  67. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 181ff., 189 and 212f.
  68. ^ Alain Pécheral: La grande histoire de l'OM. Des origines à nos jours. Ed. Prolongations, op. Cit. 2007 ISBN 978-2-916400-07-5 , pp. 114-116
  69. ↑ http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804100418.html and http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200804141712.html
  70. ↑ "Ils ont écrit l'une des plus belles pages de l'histoire de l'Algérie, de la lutte anti-coloniale et du sport en général."  - Nait-Challal, p. 8
  71. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 27, 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.fifa.com
  72. ↑ Besides Lanfranchi, Mekloufi, also Pierre Lanfranchi / Alfred Wahl: The Immigrant as Hero: Kopa, Mekloufi and French Football. in: The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. XIII, No. 1, March 1996, there in particular pp. 119–125
  73. ↑ E.g. eight lines in Pierre Delaunay / Jacques de Ryswick / Jean Cornu: 100 ans de football en France. Atlas, Paris 1982, 1983 2 ISBN 2-7312-0108-8 , p. 218, and three sentences in Hubert Beaudet: Le Championnat et ses champions. 70 ans de Football en France. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2002 ISBN 2-84253-762-9 , p. 60, who mentions at least six player names in it; Rethacker / Thibert, p. 278, has a quarter page on it. In L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, pp. 90–99, the absence of two not entirely unimportant players at the 1958 World Cup is even completely unmentioned; likewise in Michel Drucker / Jean-Paul Ollivier: Onze hommes en Suède. Kopa, Piantoni, Fontaine et les autres. Édition ° 1, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-86391-293-3 , although there (p. 15ff.) The national squad membership of Zitouni, Brahimi, Ben Tifour and Mekhloufi in the year before the World Cup is explicitly stated. Even the Mekhloufi biography in Frédéric Parmentier: AS Saint-Étienne, histoire d'une légende. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2004 ISBN 2-911698-31-2 , p. 62/63, dedicates only two dry sentences to the occasion of his four-year absence, while the one in Christophe Barge / Laurent Tranier: Vert passion. Les plus belles histoires de l'AS Saint-Étienne. Timée, Boulogne 2004 ISBN 2-915586-04-7 , pp. 32–35, the reason for absence is not mentioned at all.
    The extensive concealment of the events began very early in France; l'Équipe's football yearbook (p. 12), which ran until November 1958, had only two sentences on it on April 15. In the very detailed chapter about the national team on their way to the World Cup in Sweden (pp. 53–74), the two missing Algerians are not mentioned at all. On the other hand, a German-language football book deals more thoroughly with the topic in a factually but not faultless little chapter under the heading "Escape over night": Werner Skrentny: Football World     Cup 1958 Sweden. AGON, Kassel 2002, ISBN 3-89784-192-4 , p. 32.
  74. ↑ Michel Hidalgo: Le temps des bleus. Mémoires. Jacob-Duvernet, Paris 2007 ISBN 978-2-84724-146-4 , p. 50
  75. ^ "Malheureusement, la guerre d'Algérie privera l'AS Monaco de ses brillants joueurs north-africains partis au combat. Bekhloufi, Boubakeur, Chabri, Ben Tifour et Zitouni seront donc absents pendant de longs mois. “  - Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2007 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.asm-fc.com
  76. ↑ This quote is, almost word for word, attributed to the President of the SCO Angers from Nait-Challal, p. 199, opposite the returnees Rouaï.
  77. ↑ "La France, c'est vous!"  - Goldblatt, p. 504, who is wrong with regard to the exact time: de Gaulle did not already say this when the trophy was handed over in the stadium, where he was not present because of the May events in 1968 and was represented by the President of the National Assembly, but only later (see L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007 ISBN 978-2-915535-62-4 , P. 318).
  78. ↑ The French women, on the other hand, had already played an official international match against Algeria's female soccer players in May 1998 .
  79. ↑ Michaud, p. 8/9, speaks of “widespread forgetting and blindness” (oubli et aveuglement) .
  80. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 266
  81. ↑ The first to enter the square with an Algerian flag was a young woman from Lyons; an interview with her from L'Équipe of October 20, 2001, the day after her conviction, is reproduced in L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 267.
  82. ↑ Gastaut, p. 3; the result at the time the game was abandoned (4-1 for France) remained rather a marginal note in the media.
  83. ↑ Black stands for players from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, blanc for light-skinned players and beur for players of Arab-Muslim origin.
  84. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 266
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on July 14, 2008 in this version .