Said Brahimi

Saïd Brahimi, 1957

Saïd Brahimi (born March 14, 1931 in Bône ; † December 27, 1997 ibid, now renamed Annaba) was an Algerian - French football player and coach .

Club career

In France

Born in Algeria , which was then part of France , the tall and technically good right winger came in 1954 from JAC Bône to the southern French second division FC Sète , where he immediately became a regular player. He was also dangerous on goals, but was feared by the opponents mainly because of his assists and crosses. Although Brahimi occasionally exaggerated his great dribbling skills , he soon made Jules Bigot , the coach of Toulouse FC , attention, who signed him in the winter of 1955/56 after 46 second division appearances and ten goals scored himself for his first division team . There he formed a strong right wing together with René Dereuddre ; The dangerous left winger , Abdelhamid Bouchouk , also came from Algeria.

In the following two years or more, the club finished in the upper half of the table, but did not play in the foreground for the championship . But Saïd Brahimi won the French cup competition in 1957 with the "Téfécé" - the short form of the club in France . The way there was characterized by tight game play. Against RC Lens and second division FC Grenoble it required a replay each, against UA Sedan-Torcy Toulouse only saved themselves seconds before the final whistle in extra time and scored the decisive 3-2 there. In the semifinals, too, the team only prevailed 3-2 against OGC Nice in the final minutes , with Brahimi scoring the FC's first goal. The final against SCO Angers , an "offensive festival" and to date (2017) the highest goal in the history of the Coupe de France over a century , went comparatively smoothly for the Téfécé ; Saïd Brahimi scored the last goal of the match 6-3.

For Algeria

See the detailed article Football Picks by the FLN

On the second weekend in April 1958, a few game days before the end of the season, Saïd Brahimi secretly left Toulouse with his teammate Bouchouk. They met with their colleagues Rachid Mekhloufi ( AS Saint-Étienne ) and Abdelhamid Kermali ( Olympique Lyon ) near Lyon , from where the four traveled together via Switzerland to Tunis . Like many other Algerian professional footballers, they had decided to play for the selection of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) in order to promote the independence of the French colony. When Brahimi was asked a few months earlier if he wanted to take part, he is said not to have hesitated for a moment to accept. As soon as this departure became known, Toulouse FC terminated Brahimi's and Bouchouk's player contracts without notice and the association withdrew their licenses. During the Algerian War between 1958 and 1962, the team played a good 80 encounters in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Until the fall of 1959, Brahimi was part of the regular formation of the “Independence Elf” and took part in around half of their games. He then settled in Libya to work as a coach (see below) .

Stations

• Jeunesse Athletic Club de Bône (as a youth)
• Football Club de Sète (1954 – late 1955, in D2)
• Toulouse Football Club (January 1956 – April 1958)
• FLN selection (April 1958 – October 1959)

In the national team

In June and October 1957, Brahimi was used in two A-internationals of the French national team . In this circle he also scored a goal in the 8-0 victory in World Cup qualification over Iceland ; he had to replace the missing Jean Vincent in the unfamiliar left wing position. In his second game for the Bleus (0-0 in the decisive final qualifying game for the Belgians ), national coach Albert Batteux Brahimi then nominated on the right attacking side. In the spring of 1958 his international career ended for France and that began for Algeria (see above) .

Palmarès

• French champion: Nothing
• French cup winner: 1957
• 2 international matches (1 goal) for France
• 72 games and 11 goals in Division 1 (for Toulouse)
• approx. 40 games for the Algerian FLN "national team"

Life after time as a player

From 1959 Brahimi worked as a trainer; interrupted by one year (1964/65) at JSM Skikda in his native country, he worked for around 30 years in Libya because he felt at home there. Among other things, he was in charge of El Ahly Benghazi , the Aurassi Club from Darna and was responsible for the East Libyan national team. In addition, he built up a second professional pillar with a large clothing store; he "supplied the youth of the country with jeans, which has given him considerable wealth". It was not until 1990 that he finally returned to Algeria. There he was sports director of USM Annaba for a season , coach and board member of the Mouloudia Club d'Oran , and from 1991 advisor to the minister for youth and sport. At the end of 1997, Saïd Brahimi, 66 years old, died in his birthplace after a heart attack.

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
• L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007 ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4
• Michel Nait-Challal: Dribbleurs de l'indépendance. L'incroyable histoire de l'équipe de football du FLN algérien. Ed. Prolongations, o. O. 2008 ISBN 978-2-9164-0032-7
• Jean-Philippe Rethacker / Jacques Thibert: La fabuleuse histoire du football. Minerva, Genève 1996, 2003 ² ISBN 978-2-8307-0661-1

Remarks

1. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 73
2. ↑ Chaumier, p. 55
3. ^ Marc Barreaud: Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du championnat professionnel français (1932-1997). L'Harmattan, Paris 1998 ISBN 2-7384-6608-7 , p. 73
4. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, pp. 132/133
5. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, Coupe, p. 373
6. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 74
7. ↑ Rethacker / Thibert, p. 278
8. ^ Nait-Challal, p. 159
9. ↑ 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. 317f.
10. ↑ Nait-Challal, pp. 201f.
11. ↑ Nait-Challal, p. 233ff.

Web links

• Data sheet with photo on the website of the French Association