Jacques Simon

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Jacques Simon (born March 25, 1941 in Omonville-la-Rogue , Département Manche ; † December 5, 2017 in Valognes ), called "Jacky", was a French football player .

Club career

The inner striker , who grew up near the Cap de la Hague , came from an amateur club to AS Cherbourg at the age of 18 , rose to Division 2 with this club at the end of the 1959/60 season and developed there in the following three years due to his speed and his technical skills Assets and his goal danger to the regular player. The small, skinny Norman made up for his physical deficits with his fighter heart - and that in a double sense: his heart beat at an extremely low frequency even during great exertion, which gave him enormous endurance.

For the 1963/64 season he signed the competitor and first division promoted FC Nantes , where Jacques Simon quickly found a decisive role under coach José Arribas and had a significant share in Nantes' soaring. The newcomer finished the first year in the football upper house in 8th place. But the following season, the kicker, named les Canaris because of their yellow dress, surprisingly finished as champions - and “Jacky” took the top scorer's crown with 24 goals . Before the end of the season, he also played for the national team for the first time . In 1965/66 the club from Nantes managed to defend their title, to which Simon had again contributed a double-digit number of "booths", even though he often gave the decisive template to the new goalgetter Philippe Gondet , who inherited him as the league's top scorer. He was also in the national cup final for the first time , but then Racing Strasbourg prevailed 1-0 because the Alsatians managed to eliminate Simon and Gondet over 90 minutes.

In 1966/67 the runner-up followed behind AS Saint-Étienne , the other rising star in French club football, a year later FC Nantes had nothing to do with the championship outcome as seventh. After five successful years with the Canaris , in which Jacques Simon developed into a national greatness and for which, spared from serious injuries, he had only missed a handful of games and scored over 70 goals, he signed a contract with Girondins Bordeaux in 1968 .

The first year at Bordeaux started out successfully for him: the 1968/69 season ended the Girondins after a neck-and-neck race with Saint-Étienne as runner-up, "Jacky" brought it to seventh place with 14 goals among the top scorers and in May 1969 he was in the cup final for the second time. However, the opponents won again, and like the Strasbourgers in 1966, this time Olympique Marseilles defense did not allow Simon or his teammates to hit. The following year with Bordeaux only sixth in the league, he then moved to Red Star .
Even if he earned good money there: for the next three years he found himself in the unfamiliar situation instead of just playing against relegation for the title. Now mostly used in midfield , he rarely scored goals. After a 15th and a 17th place Red Star was the end of the 1972/73 season on 19th, the penultimate place in the table; Jacques Simon did not want to do a return to the second division and ended his professional career at the age of 32.

Stations

  • UST d'Équeurdreville-Hainneville (until 1959)
  • Association Sportive de Cherbourg-Stella (1959–1963)
  • Football Club de Nantes (1963-1968)
  • Girondins de Bordeaux (1968-1970)
  • Red Star de Paris (1970–1973)

National player

Between March 1965 (debut in the 1: 2 home defeat against Austria ) and March 1969, "Jacky" was also called up to 15 games in France's national team, in which, however, he only managed one goal. Thirteen of those appearances were during his time at Nantes, two while he was playing for Bordeaux. He was part of the 1966 World Cup squad and was on the English pitch in two of the three matches of the Équipe tricolore .

Life after player time

Jacques Simon returned to the coast of the English Channel and ran a sporting goods store in Carentan , where he also coached the local amateur club, Club Sportif Carentan . "Jacky" later worked in a supplier company for the Flamanville nuclear power plant ; before his death he lived as a pensioner near Cherbourg . On December 5, 2017, Simon died at the age of 76 in Valognes hospital .

Palmarès

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jacky Simon, figure légendaire du football manchois, est décédé . La Presse de la Manche, December 5, 2017, accessed December 8, 2017 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Simon, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Omonville-la-Rogue , Manche, France
DATE OF DEATH 5th December 2017
Place of death Valognes , Manche, France