Henri Baillot

Henri Baillot (born December 13, 1924 in Magny-les-Metz , † November 9, 2000 in Gorze ) was a French football player .

Club career

As an adolescent, Henri Baillot played for a club from a suburb of Metz , where he was discovered by the president of the first division FC Metz in 1945 and offered him a professional contract. The "garnet reds" - the club's players are still called les Grenats in France because of their coat of arms of the same color - paid him so well as a young man that he was able to give up his job. The Baillot, who was mostly positioned as a right winger or center forward , developed a goal threat there, which in the following years became his trademark and also brought him into the national team. As early as 1946/47, the "athletic, courageous and cunning attacker" called "Laï" by his teammates appeared for the first time at the top (rank 8) in the league hunter list with 21 goals and was also to be found in the following four seasons, 1949 and 1951 with 25 and 22 hits respectively in third place. However, his team never got above a double-digit rank in the final tables in the championship - a tenth place in 1947 was the greatest success during Baillot's time there - although they have a few with Ignace Kowalczyk , Gustave Kemp , Thadée Cisowski and (from 1949) Jules Sbroglia had above-average players in its ranks.

Outside the stadiums, Henri Baillot, who had brought a permanent injury (stiff right arm) with him from the war , was considered a " bon vivant "; This reputation may have been due to his high player salary, which at the end of the 1940s is said to have been 100,000 old francs per month - based on purchasing power at the time around 1,300 DM - above that of colleagues who played at much more successful clubs. In any case, the team council of the runner-up and multiple cup winners OSC Lille (consisting of Prévost , Jadrejak and Baratte ) at the turn of the year 1949/50 explicitly justified its request to its president Louis Henno for a substantial increase in income. When FC Metz had to relegate at the end of the 1949/50 season, the newly crowned champions Girondins Bordeaux signed the striker - for this "mega transfer" of the French league, Metz demanded 7 million FF plus the player Camille Libar (Baillot even spoke of 8 Million, of which he himself received 15% as "hand money").

With the Girondins he became part of a strong offensive series - namely Joop de Kubber , André Doye , Édouard Kargulewicz and Bertus de Harder  - to whose reputation he also contributed 35 goals in the following two seasons. In Division 1 , his team finished sixth in 1951, and in 1952 he had his most successful year with her: runner-up in the league and finalist in the cup, although OGC Nice relegated to second place in both competitions . In particular, the final of the Coupe de France thrilled the contemporaries due to the fact that the game was absolutely open for well over an hour, in which both teams were unconditionally offensive. L'Équipe recorded 27 shots on goal from Bordeaux and 20 from Nice the next day, which, however, won 5-3 despite two Baillot goals. President Vincent Auriol raved about the handover of the trophy: "This match reminds me of a Viennese waltz ".

Nevertheless, Henri Baillot immediately left Bordeaux because his partner did not feel comfortable there, and played for Racing Strasbourg , only appearing in the second division in the 1952/53 season. Ten months later he returned with the Alsatians in the first division after they had prevailed as third in the table in the subsequent Barrages against the Stade Rennes UC . But around the turn of the year 1953/1954, Strasbourg sold its striker, who had scored six times in 16 league games, to Rennes of all places. There, the experienced attacking position Baillot / Grumellon was one of the most dangerous goals of the second division season 1954/55, which opened up the chance for the Bretons to rise again.

But after Rennes failed in the barrages at Lille OSC and he himself increasingly suffered from a knee injury, Henri Baillot ended his professional career. He later trained with AC Bar-le-Duc. In 2000, shortly before the age of 76, he died near Metz.

Stations

• 1945–1950: FC Metz
• 1950–1952: Girondins Bordeaux
• 1952 – December 1953: Racing Strasbourg (1952/53 in D2)
• January 1954–1955: Stade Rennes UC (in D2)

In the national team

Between June 1948 and May 1950, Henri Baillot wore the blue national dress in eight international matches and scored four goals. He made his debut in the 4-0 victory in Prague against Czechoslovakia , against which he immediately scored a goal, and he was then included in the following encounter. In the spring of 1949 he missed three games, but was back in June against Switzerland, again contributed a goal to the 4-2 success and became the regular right-winger. In October 1949, a real test followed when France had to compete against their feared opponent ("bête noire") Yugoslavia in the World Cup qualification . Both in Belgrade and in the second leg in Colombes , Baillot scored the only French goal - both games ended 1-1 - and was celebrated in the media the next day for his “really strong form”. Two weeks later he was again on the field in a victory over the Czechoslovaks, but for the decider against Yugoslavia in mid-December he had to cancel due to injury; in it, France lost 3-2 after extra time, which prevented the Bleus from participating in a World Cup final for the first time. In the spring of 1950, Henri Baillot returned to the national team, which lost 1-0 to Scotland - and after his club change to Bordeaux "his scoring qualities were no longer adequately recognized in the national team".

Palmarès

• French championship: runner-up in 1952
• French Cup: Finalist 1952
• eight times national team player

literature

• Denis Chaumier: Les Bleus. Tous les joueurs de l'équipe de France de 1904 à nos jours. Larousse, o. O. 2004, ISBN 2-03-505420-6
• L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004, ISBN 2-951-96053-0
• Alfred Wahl / Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995, ISBN 978-2-0123-5098-4

Web links

• Baillots data sheet on the website of the French Football Association
• Datasheet at footballdatabase.eu

Notes and evidence

1. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, pp. 119 and 126
2. ↑ ^{a b} Chaumier, p. 24
3. ↑ all information on these lists from Sophie Guillet / François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2009. Vecchi, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-7328-9295-5 , pp. 145-153.
4. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 146; ditto, for example, also Jean Cornu: Les grandes équipes françaises de football. Famot, Genève 1978, p. 91
5. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, pp. 145f.
6. ↑ L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4 , p. 368
7. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 146
8. ↑ all club have top-flight figures from 1948/49 from 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.
9. ↑ according to Baillot's short biography under his data sheet ( memento of the original from September 5, 2011 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 side of FC Metz 
10. ↑ Data on the international matches during Baillot's national team membership from L'Équipe / Ejnès, La belle histoire, p. 311/312
11. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, La belle histoire, p. 75
12. ↑ Chaumier, p. 24f.