Roger Courtois

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Roger Courtois (born May 30, 1912 in Geneva / Switzerland ; † May 5, 1972 ) was a Swiss - French football player and coach . Originally from Urania in Geneva, he celebrated his greatest successes in France in the 1930s at FC Sochaux, with whom he became champion and cup winner. During that time, he was twice king of the league goalscorer and appeared 22 times for the French national team. In the war years he was the Swiss Cup winner with Lausanne. As a coach, he led the second division Troyes-Savinienne in the cup final in 1956.

The player career

The son of French parents took his first footballing steps in his Swiss birthplace near Urania Genève . In 1933, the center forward moved to the French professional league at FC Sochaux , where he made a big hit right away: Roger Courtois landed in third place on the top scorer list (23 hits) in his first season and was called up to the national team for the first time during the first half of the season. In the following season 1934/35 he won the French championship with Sochaux , and he had made a significant contribution to this title win: This time 29 goals of the season were enough for second place among the most successful league shooters - right behind his club colleague Trello Abegglen , with whom he had a match In the literal sense of the word excellently added: 59 of the 94 “booths” of the Sochaliens came from this duo, who presented the opposing goalkeepers one after the other with unsolvable tasks.

In the following year, FC Sochaux only finished in league, but Roger Courtois was able to significantly increase his record again and was the top scorer with 34 goals , ahead of Mannheim's Ossi Rohr, who competed for Racing Strasbourg , with 28 goals. In the season 1936/37 an injury threw back the goal-hungry attacker; he could only play in 19 league games, but as compensation he was back in the middle of his team in the final of the national cup (2-1 against Racing Strasbourg). In 1938 he had found his way back to his old form and won his second championship title, to which he was again able to make a substantial contribution (22 goals, 5th place among goal scorers). In the last pre-war season he was top scorer for the second time with 27 successes. Courtois won a title every year from 1935 to 1939 - with the team or individually.

Soon after the invasion and occupation of France by the German Wehrmacht , the soldier Courtois was taken prisoner. Following his release for health reasons (1941), he returned to his neutral country of birth ; there he soon played football again with Lausanne-Sports , with whom he was able to win championships and national cups in Switzerland in 1944 . After the liberation of France, he was drawn back to his FC Sochaux , with whom he was relegated from Division 1 in the 1945/46 season and immediately rose again in 1947. In this second division year, Courtois and his teammates scored a staggering 141 goals in 42 point games. During these years, however, he had to cede the rank of the best shooter in his team to the Czech “Pepi” Humpál . Until 1952 Roger Courtois played there in the highest class; when he stopped, he had long since become a “monument”, and with 192 first division clubs he is the most successful shooter that FC Sochaux has ever had to this day.

From player to coach

At the age of 40, Courtois had by no means had enough of competitive sport: he moved to the second division at AS Troyes-Savinienne , where he initially worked as a player-coach, and rose again to Division 1 with this club in 1954 . The thoroughbred striker increasingly concentrated on the work off the sideline, and although his team had to relegate again in 1956, they surprisingly reached the final of the Coupe de France , in which Troyes was then defeated by UA Sedan-Torcy . In the same year, the indestructible 44-year-old played his last league game and shot his last first division goal.

Stations

  • Urania de Genève (Switzerland, until 1933)
  • FC Sochaux-Montbéliard (1933–1939)
  • Lausanne-Sports (Switzerland, 1941–1945)
  • FC Sochaux-Montbéliard (1945–1952)
  • AS Troyes-Savinienne (1952–1957, as player-coach; 1956/57 only as coach)

The national player

Between December 1933 and March 1947, Roger Courtois played 22 international matches for the Equipe Tricolore and scored 10 goals. The Second World War prevented, as with so many, a larger number of international missions: there were more than seven years between his penultimate (January 1940) and his last game for les Bleus . In his last game in the national dress, Courtois was also the team captain.

At the World Cup finals in 1934 and 1938 he was part of the French squad, but was not used in any of the three French games - the coaches gave Jean Nicolas preference in the center of the storm at both tournaments .

Roger Courtois died a few weeks before his 60th birthday.

Palmarès

personal data
SURNAME Courtois, Roger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH May 5th 1972