Lucien Cossou

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Lucien Cossou in 1963

Lucien Cossou (born January 29, 1936 in Marseille ) is a former French football player . With his 149 goals in France's top division , he is to this day (2008) ranked 20th among all strikers in French professional football since 1932 .

Club career

The dark-skinned, light-footed, but also assertive striker in the air duel had a feeling for the development of the respective game situation; therefore Lucien Cossou could be used in any attack position. He made his best games as a half-forward or winger on the left. Early on, he was referred to as "Ben Barek from Endoume " after the district he was born in and the North African footballer Larbi Ben Barek . He began his career at the second division AS Aix , whose coach Henri Roessler used him for the first time in a competitive game in the 1954/55 season. Despite two mediocre years, the team from Aix-en-Provence - they finished both seasons just above the relegation ranks - the higher-class Olympique Lyon brought Cossou to the Rhone metropolis in 1956 . After a certain period of getting used to the side of more experienced players like André Lerond , Ernest Schultz , Abdelhamid Kermali or Robert Mouynet , he drew national attention from the 1958/59 season, in which he scored 16 goals. In this season, apart from playing with the French national military team, he also made his first international appearances when Olympique met Inter Milan in the Messestadt Cup , but lost to the Italians after 1-1 (goal by Cossou) and 7-0 . Even in France's Division 1 , his team did not get beyond places in the upper middle of the table.

Therefore, in the summer of 1959, he accepted an offer from AS Monaco , in which he won his first title less than twelve months later: with a 4-2 final win after extra time over AS Saint-Étienne , coach Lucien Leduc's men won the French Cup . In the following season 1960/61 Lucien Cossou scored 18 goals, which he - in seventh place - was to be found for the first time among the top ten goal scorers. Above all, however, he had made a significant contribution to the fact that the ASM was also able to win the first championship title in its history in 1961 . He also became a national player himself that year (see below) . In the European Cup of National Champions in 1961/62 , however, the end came after two games (twice 2: 3 against Glasgow Rangers ).

In the season 1962/63 Cossou was able to trump the success of 1960/61, because in a particularly goal-hungry assault row, u. a. alongside Michel Hidalgo , Théo and Yvon Douis , he scored 28 league goals, which meant second place behind Serge Masnaghetti , and helped Monaco win the championship again (in front of Stade Reims ). In the French Cup, the team reached the final again; after a goalless 120 minutes against Olympique Lyon, Cossou broke the spell in the replay after almost an hour and overcame goalkeeper Marcel Aubour to 1-0 (final score 2-0). He was also the winner of only the sixth doublé in French football history. The following year AS Monaco "only" finished as runner-up, and Cossou's 21 goals this time meant only fourth place among the league chasers. In the European Cup, however, the striker wrote club history when he knocked out AEK Athens almost alone with four goals in the first round match at the Stade du Ray in Nice : he scored 1-0, 4-0 and 5-0 in the first and 6-0 in the second half (final score 7: 2). In the second round, however, Hinter Milan finished 1-0 and 3-1 - again not in Monaco , but in the Stade Vélodrome in his native Marseille  , due to the small number of spectators at the Stade Louis II (at that time only 5,000 seats) - further trophy dreams of the Monaco .

In 1965, Lucien Cossou went to the second division Sporting Toulon and, after Toulon had missed promotion in fifth, in 1966 to league rivals AS Aix. At the end of the season, his old club prevailed in the barrages , so that the attacker played again in the football upper house of France in 1967/68 and there again provided evidence of his class: in a team that immediately entered the division as 20th and bottom of the table after the end of the season 2 returned, Cossou had scored another 17 goals and was the fifth best league scorer. It is likely, but not definitely, that he will continue to storm for Aix for the next two years in the second division. From 1970 to 1972 he played for the lower class club ESCN La Ciotat . How the further life of Cossous went, who more than once expressed his regret that he never played for Olympique Marseille, the big club in his hometown, cannot be determined yet.

Stations

  • Association Sportive Aixoise (1954–1956, in D2)
  • Olympique Lyonnais (1956–1959)
  • Association Sportive de Monaco (1959-1965)
  • Sporting Club de Toulon (1965/66, in D2)
  • Association Sportive Aixoise (1966–1968 or 1970, of which only 1967/68 in D1)
  • Étoile Sportive et Club Naval La Ciotat (1970–1972)

In the national team

During his military service, Lucien Cossou was deployed in the national military team, with whom he even became world champion in July 1957 in Argentina, together with his future striker colleagues from Monaco, Douis and Théo . Between December 1960 and April 1964 (Hungary) he played six full international matches for France , in which he scored four goals, the first of which on his debut in the World Cup qualifier against Bulgaria . Nevertheless, there was an interruption of two and a quarter years before he was used again in 1963: in the European Championship preliminary round match against England he even contributed two hits to the 5-2 victory, which was already celebrated in the French press as the "rebirth of the Gallic rooster". He then ran in two friendship matches against the Netherlands and Brazil and, in the European Championship round of 16, again against Bulgaria for the Équipe tricolore . In the following EM quarter-finals against Hungary he managed to score again, but France lost to the Magyars at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir of Colombes with 1: 3 and thus missed the final tournament of this competition. After that, Cossou was not considered again by national coach Henri Guérin - with whom he had been in a team in his first professional season at AS Aix.

Palmarès

  • French champion: 1961, 1963 (and runner-up in 1964)
  • French cup winner: 1960, 1963
  • Doublé: 1963
  • 6 international matches (4 goals) for France
  • 285 games and 149 goals in Division 1 , 91/35 for Lyon, 161/97 for Monaco, 33/17 for Aix
  • 5 games and 5 goals in European Cup competitions, including 2/1 for Lyon, 3/4 for Monaco
  • Military World Champion: 1957

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
  • Jean Cornu: Les grandes equipes françaises de football. Famot, Genève 1978
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004 ISBN 2-9519605-3-0
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: 50 ans de Coupes d'Europe. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2005 ISBN 2-9519605-9-X
  • L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007 ISBN 978-2-915535-62-4
  • Jean-Philippe Rethacker / Jacques Thibert: La fabuleuse histoire du football. Minerva, Genève 1996, 2003 2 ISBN 978-2-8307-0661-1

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Chaumier, p. 79
  2. ↑ Cornu, p. 135; Chaumier, p. 79
  3. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, 50 ans, p. 251
  4. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 376
  5. ^ This, like all other information on the league shooter list from Sophie Guillet / François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2007. Vecchi, Paris 2006 ISBN 2-7328-6842-6 , pp. 158-169.
  6. ↑ Cornu, p. 136; L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 379; Rethacker / Thibert, p. 349f.
  7. ↑ A team photo of AS Monaco after this victory can be found in Klaus Leger: Just like Real Madrid once did. The history of the European Cup 1955-1964. AGON, Kassel o. J. [2003] ISBN 3-89784-211-4 , p. 109
  8. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, 50 ans, pp. 275 and 282; Reason for evading home games according to Rethacker / Thibert, p. 368
  9. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 275
  10. ↑ Preliminary round, round of 16 and quarter-finals of the EM 1964 are now counted as qualifications for the final tournament.
  11. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 354; L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, p. 110 - there is also a photo of his second hit, a volley decrease
  12. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Belle histoire, pp. 321-324.
  13. ↑ after 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.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cossou, Lucien
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Marseille