Jean Lechantre

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Jean Lechantre (born February 13, 1922 in Taintignies , today part of the Belgian municipality of Rumes , † February 12, 2015 in Lille ) was a French football player and coach of Belgian origin.

Player career

In his clubs

During his entire career, the Belgian Jean Lechantre only played for two clubs in the immediate vicinity of his birthplace - but across the border in France. At the age of 12 he came to Olympique Lille , to whom he remained loyal for 18 years and where he was already part of the team in the 1940/41 season. It was only as an adult that Lechantre was naturalized in France . Until the liberation at the end of 1944, gaming in northern France , which had been declared a “forbidden zone” (zone interdite) , was subject to particularly severe restrictions compared to the other parts of the country occupied by German troops .

Immediately after the end of the World War and the occupation, he won several national championship and national cup competition titles with this club . In the team of the club, which has now merged into Lille Olympique SC, the left winger also drew the attention of the French national team to the attention of the French national team with his speed paired with goal danger, his "irresistible dribbling " and his flanks and passes into the opposing penalty area.

In the long history of the French Cup, there are only a handful of players who have played in five consecutive Cup finals and have won three of them, also in series. Lechantre managed this from 1945 to 1949 , with his first and last finals each ending with a defeat (0: 3 and 2: 5) against Racing Paris . In 1949 he scored his only goal in the final at a time of 1: 5. In 1946 Lechantre also won the Division 1 championship with Lille and thus also the Doublé . In the highly successful Lilles team during the first post-war decade, coaches George Berry and, from 1946, André Cheuva were able to draw on a pool of players such as Jules Bigot , Jean Baratte , René Bihel , François Bourbotte , Roger Vandooren , Marceau Somerlinck , Joseph Jadrejak and Jacques Grimonpon , Boleslaw Tempowski , a little later André Strappe , Jean Vincent , Guillaume Bieganski and also Jean Lechantre fall back. This was with the OSC from 1948 to 1951 also four times in a row runner-up and played another final in 1951, which Lille lost to the Coupe Latine against AC Milan with 0-5.

In 1952, Lechantre, who had grown up a young competitor at the LOSC in Jean Vincent, moved a few kilometers further to CO Roubaix-Tourcoing . There he met former OSC teammates such as national goalkeeper Julien Darui and Jean Baratte as well as some other well-known footballers ( Lazare Gianessi , René Dereuddre , André Simonyi ), but CORT closed the seasons twice only as table 15. and in 1955 had to relegate to the bottom of the league even in the second division . The left winger then accepted AC Cambrai's offer to work as a player- coach.

Club stations
  • Olympique Lillois (1934-1943)
  • Équipe Fédérale Lille-Flandres (1943/44)
  • Lille Olympique SC (1944–1952)
  • Club Olympique Roubaix-Tourcoing (1952–1955)
  • Athlétic Club Cambrésien (1955–1959, in the amateur field, initially as a player-coach)

In the national team

Jean Lechantre played three full international matches for France between May 1947 and December 1949 . The "shy and cautious outside the field" attacker made his debut against England ; his second international match against Czechoslovakia followed a year and a half later. When the French shortly thereafter in Florence in the playoff to the qualification for World Cup in Brazil after extra time 2: 3 against Yugoslavia subject, Lechantre was again used. This third was at the same time Lechantre's last appearance in the jersey of the Bleus  - a "blatant contradiction" in terms of his skills and his palmarès .

Trainer

Lechantre made the transition from player to coach during his four years in Cambrai . In 1959 he became a trainer at CO Roubaix-Tourcoing. This was followed by amateur activities in the 1960s, for example at the Sporting Club Hazebrouck , in Ronse, Belgium and, again in France, at the Iris Club de Lambersart . Finally, he returned to his first club in this role: at Lille OSC, he was responsible for the junior and A and B youth teams for many years.

Jean Lechantre spent his old age in a senior citizens' residence in Lille , where he was still regularly involved with football and his ex-club. He died there, one day before his 93rd birthday, in February 2015.

One of his sons, Pierre Lechantre , also had a long career as a professional footballer, which began at Lille OSC, and later became a  coach - among others for the Cameroon national team from 1999 to 2001 .

Palmarès as a player

  • French champion: 1946 (also four times runner-up from 1948 to 1951)
  • French cup winner: 1946, 1947, 1948 (and finalist 1945, 1949)
  • 3 full international matches (no hit) for France
  • Coupe Latine finalist: 1951
  • from 1948 still 158 games with 48 hits in Division 1, of which 87/34 for Lille, 71/14 for Roubaix-Tourcoing

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
  • Paul Hurseau / Jacques Verhaeghe: Olympique Lillois - Sporting Club Fivois - Lille OSC Alan Sutton, Joué-lès-Tours 1997, ISBN 2-84253-080-2
  • Paul Hurseau / Jacques Verhaeghe: Les immortels du football nordiste. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003, ISBN 2-84253-867-6
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4

Remarks

  1. ↑ In Hurseau / Verhaeghe, Olympique Lillois, p. 34, Lechantre can be found on the respective team photo for the seasons 1940/41 and 1942/43.
  2. ^ Alfred Wahl / Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995, ISBN 978-2-0123-5098-4 , p. 130; see also Lechantre's player license from 1949 from Hurseau / Verhaeghe, Olympique Lillois, p. 88
  3. ↑ a b c Chaumier, p. 190
  4. ↑ a b Hurseau / Verhaeghe, Les immortels, p. 83
  5. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 429
  6. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, pp. 361-365
  7. ↑ detailed description in Jean Cornu: Les grandes équipes françaises de football. Famot, Genève 1978, pp. 75-96
  8. ↑ According to the association's data sheet (see web links) as an external runner , according to L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004 ISBN 2-951-96053-0 , p. 312, but in its usual position on the left wing.
  9. ↑ see the interview " I was a bit of the Messi of the era " in La Voix du Nord on October 31, 2014
  10. ↑ Use figures according to 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, n.d.; for the time before 1948 no exact information is available.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lechantre, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian-French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Taintignies , Belgium
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 2015
Place of death Lille