Hassan Akesbi

Hassan Akesbi in the FUS Rabat jersey with the trophy from the Throne Cup, 1967.

Hassan Akesbi (born December 5, 1934 in Tangier ) is a former Moroccan football player who played predominantly in France and is still one of the most successful top scorers of all time in the top division there (as of June 2009) .

The club career

The center forward , who is only 1.73 m tall and weighs 62 kg, began in 1950 in his hometown near Sevilliana Tanger , which was then under international control, and then moved to the traditional FUS Rabat . Here Spanish and French clubs became aware of the elegant attacker, whose “trademark” was a fine mustache, but he initially stayed in Morocco . It was only at the age of 20 that he took the step into professional football: from the 1955/56 season he played for Olympique Nîmes , whose trainer Kader Firoud , who was also from the Maghreb , had campaigned for Akesbi's commitment.

In Nîmes, he immediately succeeded in bringing his qualities to bear: in the following six years he was always one of the ten most successful goalscorers in Division 1 and scored an average of 20 goals this season by 1961. In 1959 he was second and in 1961 third best league scorer , and also played for the Moroccan national soccer team . But in all these years his accuracy was not enough to win the title: The team from the Languedoc was runner-up three times in a row (1958–1960) , and Akesbi's club had to admit defeat twice in the cup (1958, 1961) - too dominant was the competitor Stade de Reims in those years .

Therefore, Akesbi followed in 1961 the offer of this then "supervisor" to replace the long-term injured Just Fontaine , and ran for the red and whites from Champagne . He did that in the following two years with the usual reliability, was again the second or third best goalscorer in the league, and in the first year he was finally able to win the championship . The fact that he was able to find his way around Reims without any changeover problems was certainly due to the fact that he was able to play with numerous top-class offensive players ( Kopa , Piantoni , Vincent , Glovacki and Lucien Muller ), but also to the fact that Abdallah Azhar was already a Moroccan National striker was part of the team.

While Hassan Akesbi had only ever been uphill until 1963, a deep turning point followed in the 1963/64 season. The successful team was "getting on in years", their long-time coach Albert Batteux had to leave the club before the start of the season, the successor Camille Cottin experimented with constantly new lineups and thus accelerated the club's fall into the table cellar. The center forward also fell short of his potential (only two goals in 12 matches) and was loaned to AS Monaco in the winter . There he was used eleven times (six hits), was again runner-up, but absolutely wanted to return to Stade de Reims, although the club was actually relegated to Division 2 . In 1964/65 he still scored 11 goals there, then moved to FUS Rabat and ended his career in 1970 due to injury.

Stations

• Sevilliana Tangier
• FUS de Rabat (1952–1955)
• Olympique Nîmes (1955–1961)
• Stade de Reims (1961 to December 1963 and 1964/65)
• AS Monaco (January to June 1964)
• FUS de Rabat (1965-1970)

The national player

Hassan Akesbi denied so far not exactly be determined number of international matches for which a Moroccan national football team , at least between 1960 and 1970. In 1961 he was part of the team that in qualifying for the World Cup in Chile as Africa winner additionally against Spain to take had to and got out of the affair very respectably with 0: 1 and 2: 3. He had also made a significant contribution to Morocco becoming the first country in Africa to qualify for the 1970 World Cup, but had to forego the trip to Mexico due to an injury. Hassan Akesbi is one of the greatest players in his country alongside Larbi Ben Barek .

After the time as a player

Akesbi worked as a trainer after 1970, among others at FUS Rabat , Hassania US Agadir and Ittihad Zemmouris Khémisset (Morocco). Here, too, a complete documentation of his work is difficult. Until the decision of FIFA (2004), he was one of the ambassadors who should promote Morocco's candidacy to host the 2010 World Cup .

Palmarès

• French champion : 1962 (and runner-up in 1958, 1959, 1960 with Nîmes, 1963 with Reims and 1964 with Monaco)
• French cup winner : Nothing (but finalist 1958, 1961)
• European Champion Clubs' Cup : Participation in 1962/63
• 293 games and 173 goals in Division 1 , of which 204/119 for Nîmes, 78/48 for Reims, 11/6 for Monaco
• 11th on the list of all-time top scorers in France; twice second best scorer of the season (1959 at Nîmes and 1962 at Reims)
• National player for Morocco

literature

• Jean Cornu: Les grandes equipes françaises de football. Famot, Genève 1978
• Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau / Tony Verbicaro: Stade de Reims - une histoire sans fin. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2001 ISBN 2-911698-21-5
• Michel Hubert / Jacques Pernet: Stade de Reims. Sa legend. Atelier Graphique, Reims 1992 ISBN 2-9506272-2-6
• L'Équipe (ed.): Stade de Reims. Un club à la Une. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2006 ISBN 2-915535-41-8
• 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