Roger Piantoni

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Roger Piantoni (born December 26, 1931 in Étain , Département Meuse , † May 26, 2018 in Nancy ) was a French football player .

Childhood and youth

The grandson of Italian immigrants grew up with his grandparents in Lorraine after his mother died of blood poisoning in 1933 and his father was deported to Germany from 1940 to 1946. After finishing school, Piantoni completed an apprenticeship at the local ore mine La Mourière , but as the first boy in his family no longer as a miner , but as a surveyor. Piantoni came from a football-loving family - his uncle Romeo Beneventi was under contract with Red Star in 1942/43 - and initially played for the US (later: ES) Piennes , a very successful amateur club from Roger Piantoni's place of residence after the Second World War Thadée Cisowski had grown up and about whom it was said "6 Italians and 5 Poles - or vice versa". Here he was shaped by coach Hans "Jean" Blaschek , a former player at Wacker Vienna and FC Metz , and during this time he also won his first French championship title: after a 6: 3 over the team from Nord-Pas-de-Calais ( in whose ranks a certain Raymond Kopaczewski directed) Piantoni stood with the junior selection team (Cadets) of Lorraine in the final of this competition. As a prelude to the men's cup final (Lille against Lens) on May 9, 1948 in the Stade Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes, Lorraine won against the Provence-Côte-d'Azur team (including Francis Méano ) due to two Piantoni goals 2 :1.

The club career

His professional career began in the 1950/51 season in his home in Lorraine at FC Nancy , where he quickly formed a dangerous duo with his strike partner, left winger Léon Deladerrière . In his very first ever season Piantoni was charged with 28 hits scorer of Division 1 . He was appointed to the national team for the first time at the age of 20 (1: 1 in Ireland ) and was also successful there with his goal. The skinny, left-footed and technically brilliant attacking player is described as always polite and modest despite his early, steep rise, at the same time as "the most talented and versatile French kicker of his generation" (D. Chaumier). In 1954, both Internazionale Milan and Juventus Turin sought to sign him and he asked his president to give him this chance to return to his roots. However, he refused without any further reason - and the disappointed Piantoni seriously considered for a while to stop professional sport entirely. What hit him even deeper was what he learned years later (and not from Nancy, but from Reims' President Henri Germain ): Nancy had long since committed to handing over the half-forward only to Stade de Reims , if at all .

When FC Nancy, which for six years, despite Piantoni, only ever reached one place in the middle of the table, even had to relegate to the second division in 1957, the most successful French club from Champagne at the time made use of this option and signed Piantoni. The terms of this transfer are typical of French professional football at the time: Reims had secured the right of first refusal to number 10 since 1952 through annual payments of an amount that is still unknown today. When Piantoni's sale became financially necessary due to relegation, Reims also had to pay the record-breaking transfer fee of 25 million old francs and give two players ( Jean Templin and Raoul Schollhammer) to Nancy for free - none of the footballers involved was asked.

In Reims, Roger Piantoni was at least part of the team with greats like Armand Penverne , Robert Jonquet , Jean Vincent and Just Fontaine - and the 20-time national player who was already "seasoned" had no problems joining this team under coach Albert Batteux to insert. That this was done for everyone's benefit can be seen in the successes that Stade Reims collected with and through Piantoni: In his first year (1957/58) he achieved the double ( champion and cup winner ); Fontaine won the top scorer (34 hits), but Piantoni also contributed 17 goals to the title win. In 1960 and 1962 further national championship titles were added, and as a crowning achievement in 1959, reaching the European Cup final (0-2 against Real Madrid ). For Piantoni himself as well as for many of his teammates, third place with the national team at the World Cup in Sweden fell during this time , up to then the greatest success of the Équipe Tricolore . In addition, the left-footed player was again the best scorer in Division 1 in 1961 : he scored 28 goals, like ten years before. However, he was increasingly plagued by injuries - caused by rude attacks by some opponents who had nothing else to counter Piantoni's technique - and had to be operated on several times. In particular , he never fully recovered from the consequences of the brutal entry of the Bulgarian defender Largov in October 1959 (double knee fracture): in 1961/62 he played only 18, 1962/63 even only six of 38 league games each. Therefore, he ended his national team career in 1961.

When Reims was surprisingly only bottom of the table in 1964, Piantoni - together with Bruno Rodzik  , who also came to Reims from Lorraine - joined OGC Nice , who was also relegated that season , who then succeeded in being promoted again immediately and who achieved a good midfield position in 1965/66 Division 1 occupied. That was the time for Piantoni to quit football.

Stations

  • US Piennes (until 1950)
  • FC Nancy (1950–1957)
  • Stade Reims (1957–1964)
  • OGC Nice (1964–1966)

The national player

Between November 1952 and September 1961 Roger Piantoni was appointed to the Equipe Tricolore 37 times (20 appearances for Nancy, 17 for Reims) and scored 18 goals there. An injury that he sustained in the international match against Italy in the spring of 1954 prevented his participation in the 1954 World Cup , which is considered safe ; In 1958 in Sweden , however, he was there and scored three goals. He harmonized particularly well with Raymond Kopa , although the two had never played together in the club (Kopa only returned to Reims in 1959 and then played for four years with Piantoni); and many of Just Fontaine's goalscoring was preceded by a pass from Piantoni. The specialist magazine France Football recognized him posthumously with the headline "He was a left-footed Kopa" and highlighted his universality as a goal-scorer, playmaker and distributor at the same time.

Piantoni's life after football

After the end of his active career, Roger Piantoni ran a sporting goods store in Carpentras until 1970 , then returned to Lorraine and became a representative of Adidas . From 1970 to 1988 he was also a member of the Conseil fédéral of the French football association. Since the mid-1970s, Piantoni was a coveted co-commentator for his calm manner and expertise, first on radio (Europe 1) , soon also on television (Antenne 2) . A grandstand at the Stade Marcel Picot , where AS Nancy Lorraine competes today, bears Piantoni's name - and the half-left, who is back in Nancy, suffered many times with the players of "his" ASNL until his death in May 2018.

Palmarès

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
  • Pascal Grégoire-Boutreau / Tony Verbicaro: Stade de Reims - une histoire sans fin. Cahiers intempestifs, Saint-Étienne 2001 ISBN 2-911698-21-5
  • Michel Hubert / Jacques Pernet: Stade de Reims. Sa legend. Atelier Graphique, Reims 1992 ISBN 2-9506272-2-6
  • L'Équipe (Ed.): Stade de Reims. Un club à la Une. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2006 ISBN 2-915535-41-8
  • Nathalie Milion, Piantoni - Roger-la-Classe , La Nuée Bleue / Éd. de l'Est Nancy 2003 ISBN 2-7165-0602-7
  • Lucien Perpère / Victor Sinet / Louis Tanguy: Reims de nos amours. 1931/1981 - 50 ans de Stade de Reims. Alphabet Cube, Reims 1981
  • Jacques and Thomas Poncelet: Supporters du Stade de Reims 1935-2005. Self-published, Reims 2005 ISBN 2-9525704-0-X

supporting documents

  1. ^ L'ancien international lorrain Roger Piantoni est décédé , French , accessed on May 26, 2018
  2. ↑ Article “Roger Piantoni, c'était Kopa en gaucher”, France Football of May 29, 2018, pp. 54–57
personal data
SURNAME Piantoni, Roger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Etain , France
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 2018
Place of death Nancy