Imagine a world where a club dominates European football. Imagine a world where a club dominates French football, and it’s not called Olympique Lyonnais but Stade de Reims. Imagine a world where one of the best players is French. However, he is not of Kabyle descent but of Polish origin. This world seems unthinkable for most people. Yet it did exist. Fifty years ago. And the one who made France dream was not called Zinedine Zidane but Raymond Kopa. But both played for the most successful club in Europe: Real Madrid.
The Brazilian team of 1958 better than that of 1998. It might make one smile unless the person saying it is Raymond Kopa. And the record speaks for him. Especially during that fabulous year of 1958. Spanish champion and winner of the European Cup with Real Madrid, third in the World Cup in Sweden, voted the best player of the World Cup, and above all, the first “Ballon d’Or” winner in the history of “France Football.” That’s a lot for one man, but little for someone who would become one of the legends of French football.
So people rush to buy his book, especially when all the author rights are going to the fight against cancer. Koppita, as the Madrilenians nicknamed him, was at the Côte d’Azur district last Friday and all weekend in the towns of the Alpes-Maritimes to sign it. “Kopa by Kopa,” prefaced by Zinédine Zidane, is the story of a magnificent career, of an exceptional generation. “It is important to recall how brilliant our era was. I represent it. Moreover, it’s for a good cause, so I am welcomed warmly everywhere, with wonderful people on the field, like the Lion’s club here in Nice” stresses the first French winner of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup. An era now bygone that also involved Dominique Colonna, who kept goal for OGC Nice between 1955 and 1957. He recalls the 1957 final with Stade de Reims against Raymond Kopa’s Real Madrid: “It was in Stuttgart. We lost 2-0 because Raymond got injured. Back then, there were no substitutions, so he had to stay on the field. To be honest, we could have won that match, we should have won it. So I still have some bitterness about that match.”
Both share another thing in common, the French team. By the way, the Napoleon of Football, who won three European Cups, states about his selection in 1958 for the World Cup in Sweden: “It’s an honor to be selected, especially since Real Madrid didn’t let its players participate in international matches. But they understood it was important to me, and they let me join the Blues. They did well because that year, we won everything. We had the best attack, the top scorer (Just Fontaine with 13 goals, a World Cup record, Editor’s Note), and the best player of the tournament, me. Only the final victory was missing, but Brazil was too strong.”
The following year, with all his titles, Raymond Kopa faced OGC Nice again in the quarter-finals of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup with the Merengues. A match that remains in the red-and-black club’s history as it was the first victory of a French club against Real Madrid in the competition. An achievement that would be repeated… in 2004 by AS Monaco. Raymond Kopa recalls the double confrontation: “I remember it very well. Nice played very well, but we made the difference in Madrid because we had a very nice team. Besides, that year, we won our fourth consecutive title.” Today, while he assures he follows the results of Reims and Angers, the clubs he belonged to, or Olympique Lyonnais, which is “the only one that can bring a bit but with an average championship, it’s not ready to go higher,” he admits “having a good impression of Nice and liking their coach.”
As for the former red-and-black goalkeeper, the memories of Le Ray are all very good. He also explains having restarted a new career by coming to the coast. Dominique Colonna wishes that now the club moves up to the next level. To do so, it would need to maintain its core while strengthening to reach the top three, even though it parted ways with its prodigy last summer. The goalkeeper also shares his opinion on one of his successors, Hugo Lloris: “He deserves his place in the French team. He is rarely solicited, and when he is, it’s under bad conditions, which is the lot of a goalkeeper in a great team. It was the same for me at Reims. I study Lloris; he has a great career. He is an assurance for his team.”
Dominique Colonna and Raymond Kopa made the glory days of French football fifty years ago. Now, a new generation is tasked with ensuring the continuity of this sport. However, the systems have changed, which Raymond Kopa doesn’t understand: “Today, we play in 4-4-2, whereas before we were offensive playing in 3-4-3. The problem is that now, it’s easier to destroy than to build.”
Indeed, the legend of French football does not hold back his words.
