René Masclaux

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

René Masclaux (born December 22, 1945 in Reims ) is a former French football player .

Player career

The full-back played as a child and adolescent (since 1955) and then as an adult exclusively for a club, Stade Reims , the club in his hometown. With the A-youth team of the Rémois trained by Claude Prosdocimi , he won the Coupe Gambardella , the competition held across France , in 1964 , and was also a youth national player that season . While he was doing his military service, he came in August 1964 to his first league game in the men's eleven (1: 3 defeat at US Boulogne ). Stade Reims, which had dominated French club football for a decade and a half, was surprisingly relegated to the second division this summer , and of the greats of the past few years only Raymond Kopa , Jean Wendling , Hassan Akesbi and Marcel Moreau wore the red and white Dress. Masclaux played 28 league matches in his first professional season. In the 1966/67 season Reims returned to the first division , and in it René Masclaux completed his first competitive game on August 20, 1966 (0-1 against OSC Lille ). The season ended with the immediate relegation of Stade, but the defender was called up for his consistent performance in the French junior national team. With that, Masclaux's international career was already over.

In the following second division years he became a constant in the team, and when Stade Reims returned to France's footballing "upper house" in 1970, he was its captain. During the 1970s he played alongside a number of well-known team -mates such as the national players Jean-François Jodar , Georges Lech , Yves Herbet and goalkeeper Marcel Aubour as well as the Argentines Delio Onnis , César Laraignée , José Santiago Santamaría and Carlos Bianchi . Reims established itself in the middle of the table and even played for the championship title in 1973/74 and 1975/76 . The 1976/77 season was particularly successful, when René Masclaux and his team made it to the French Cup final . Up until five minutes before the final whistle, the team captain from Reims could hope to receive the trophy right away - but then the series champions of the time, AS Saint-Étienne , turned the game around and won 2-1. The fact that Stade Reims won the Coppa delle Alpi in the same year could not compensate for this narrowly lost title.

In December 1978 the club escaped bankruptcy by a hair's breadth, players' salaries were cut by 50%, and individual contracts were terminated during the winter break. Half a year later Stade Reims ended the season as bottom of the table and relegated. René Masclaux's contract was not renewed and the player was dropped "after 24 years without the slightest thank you". The last first division captain of the Rémois up to Stade's return to the top league (2012) has remained loyal to the club and regularly laced his football boots for its traditional team for many years. Masclaux, whose son Christophe also played in Stade's league team in the 1980s, ran a full-time bar near Reims.

Palmarès

  • Winning the Coupe Gambardella in 1964
  • 1977 French Cup finalist
  • Winning the Coppa delle Alpi in 1977
  • 319 games / 2 goals in D1, thus rank 4 of the all-times best list of the red-whites , and 159/1 in D2 (1964–1979)

literature

  • Marc Barreaud / Alain Colzy: Les géants du Stade de Reims. Euromedia, Douzy 2012, ISBN 979-10-90217-07-2
  • Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau / Tony Verbicaro: Stade de Reims - une histoire sans fin. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2001, ISBN 2-911698-21-5

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b Masclaux's story at afterfoot.com
  2. ↑ Gregoire-Boutreau / Verbicaro, p. 294
  3. ↑ Gregoire-Boutreau / Verbicaro, p. 298
  4. ↑ On this page of the “Alumni of Stade Reims” ( memento of February 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) there is a photo of Masclaux and Saint-Étienne's captain, goalkeeper Ivan Ćurković , swapping club flags before the final kick-off.
  5. ↑ L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915535-62-4 , p. 393
  6. ↑ Gregoire-Boutreau / Verbicaro, pp. 176f. and 180
  7. ↑ Barreaud / Colzy, p. 68
personal data
SURNAME Masclaux, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Reims