Height 1.74 m | Years Team Role Footballer 1946–1950 US Piennes Name Roger Piantoni | |
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Date of birth (1931-12-26) 26 December 1931 (age 83) Similar People Robert Jonquet, Just Fontaine, Raymond Kopa | ||
Roger Piantoni et le Club Omnisports du Tignet
ROGER PIANTONI TRIBUTE
Roger Piantoni (born 26 December 1931) is a former French international footballer. His parents were Italian immigrants. He was a must-have forward on the French team in the late 1950s. At the 1958 world cup, Roger Piantoni was considered one of the best French players of his time. He is nicknamed Bout d'chou, meaning Cabbage Tip, ranking as the 6th top scorer in the French Championship with a total of 203 goals in Division 1.
Contents
- Roger Piantoni et le Club Omnisports du Tignet
- ROGER PIANTONI TRIBUTE
- FC Nancy
- Stade de Reims
- OGC Nice
- In selection
- Reconversion
- Club career
- Honors
- References
Club Roger Piantoni spent his youth in the mining town of La Mourière, in the community of Piennes in Meurthe-et-Moselle where he is known for playing with Thadée Cisowski in the local club, US Piennes. In 1948, with the youth team of Lorraine, he won the National Youth Cup by beating a youth team from the South-East in the championship. Henri Biancheri and Francis Méano were on the South-Eastern team as well. He will also play against Raymond Kopaszewski of a Northern youth team. The following year, he makes it onto the French Junior team for the European championship. He fails for his insufficient cardio and Michel Plantini will experience the same disappointment. During the 1949-1950 season, he was the champion of Lorraine with his team and was the top scorer in the league with 35 goals.
Position Forward
FC Nancy
He started his career at the age of 19 with FC Nancy during 1950-1951 season. In the first match of the championships, against RC Lens on August 27, 1950, he scored two goals. In his first season, he managed to become the top scorer of the championship with 27 goals. He scored five goals on the 28th day against Le Havre AC (6-1) and two quadruples (4 goals) during the return match against RC Lens (4-2) and RC Strasbourg on the final day (5-1). In November 1952, in a friendly match against Ireland, he was selected to join the French national team for the first time.
Over the course of seven seasons with FC Nancy, he scores 92 goals.In fact, the OGC Nice, the Lille OSC, and the Stade de Reims reign French champions. He and his teammates achieve some top performances in the Coupe de France nonetheless. They reached the semi-final of the season of 1950-1951 and the final in 1953 which was played on May 31 in Colombes. FC Nancy, led by Jacques Favre, loses 2-1 against Lille OSC. A few months later, on September 23, 1953, FC Nancy beat Real Madrid 4-2 on his Chamartin field (later renamed Santiago Bernabéu) in a friendly match. This match was also marked as the debut of Piantoni Piantoni. Sometimes this match is marked by the debut of Alfredo Di Stéfano at Real. Which he scored during the 60-minute mark.
However, FC Nancy faces major financial problems. During the 1956-1957 season, they were demoted to the second division and the club was forced to let its best players go. Piantoni is transferred for 250,000 francs (25 million former francs before 1960, which is about 256,000 dollars) to the Stade de Reims which has just sold Raymond Kopa to Real Madrid.
Stade de Reims
With the Stade de Reims, coached by Just Fontaine and Jean Vincent, he wins the France championship. In 1958, with the help of his teammates, they landed in the capital of the Champagne. They quickly forget the departure of Raymond Kopa, the hero of the Stage Auguste-Delaune, who left a year earlier for Real Madrid. In March 1958, he recorded a quadruple against the regional rival, Sedan. On May 1, Reims were French champions, offering his first national trophy at Piantoni a few weeks before the 1958 French Cup, which was won at the expense of Nîmes Olympique on 18 May 1958.
He scored 17 goals in 32 games in the 1957-1958 season, then scoring 20 goals the following season. It appears that the perfect match with Just Fontaine on the front of the attack, which dominates the championship of France during the years 1950 and the early 1960s.
At that time, Piantoni and several of his teammates also participated in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, where Albert Batteux (the coach, also his club coach, was beaten in the semifinal by Brazil.
After his exploits in blue, Piantoni returns with the Rémois but the defending championship team is struggling to shine: it finishes fourth with eight points at the end of the year. As an individual, he has success with 20 goals in 30 matches. On the European stage, the Reims are brilliant this season as they reach their second European Cup final of the champions clubs in their history. In a final in Stuttgart on June 3, 1959, they lost to the Spaniards of Real Madrid (0-2), in the European champion title game.
A few weeks after the end of this remarkable European run, Piantoni and his teammates set foot on the field 1959-1960 edition of the French championship. He scored 109 goals in 38 matches. Eventually, he left the Nîmes Olympique at seven points. RC Paris and they are the only clubs able to compete offensively. With two tiles for Piantoni, he scored 18 goals this season (ten fewer than Fontaine).
The 1960-1961 season is less glorious for Reims Stadium, who finished 7 points behind AS Monaco in May, due to the serious injury that hit his star forward Fontaine, just a few months earlier. He had a double fracture in his leg which stops his career. As a result of this injury, Fontaine ended discussions for a possible transfer of Piantoni to the Argentinian club of River Plate. Piantoni then became the team's scorer, becoming the country's best playmaker that season, eleven years after his title as top scorer with FC Nancy.
In the international match France-Bulgaria, October 11, 1959, he is injured by Nicola Kovatchev who breaks his knee. The injury requires several operations and hurts the rest of his career. This recurring injury causes him to go through long periods of rehabs and he is not able to play. In his last three seasons in Reims, from 1961 to 1964, he played only 37 league games, achieving 23 goals. In 1961-1962, they won their sixth national title and despite his physical problems, he achieves 16 goals in just 18 matches.
He scored his last goal with the Champenois on May 3, 1964, during a home game defeat (1-4) against Valenciennes.
OGC Nice
In 1964, Roger Piantoni joins OGC Nice, in the second division, where he played a full season. The Niçois win the second division championship and thus gain their promotion in the 1st division for the following season, after which he announces his retirement.
In selection
Roger Piantoni received his first selection on 16 November 1952 in a friendly match in Dublin between the French team and Ireland (1-1). Piantoni tied the score for French in the 67th minutes mark.
In 1954, he did not participate in the World Cup in Switzerland. Injured a few months earlier during a France-Italy, which he didn’t recover in time.
Selected for the 1958 World Cup, he is one of the great Swedish adventures that brings the Blues to the semifinals (defeat against the great Brazil of Pele (2-5). Teaming with Just Fontaine and Raymond Kopa. The Lorrain played the first five games in which he scored four goals, including the second in the semi-final against the Seleção. He did not play during the game against Germany who they beat 6-3 and secure third place. He had to undergo emergency surgery for appendicitis. He played his last match with Les Bleus on 28 September 1961, a qualifying match for the 1962 World Cup in Chile against Finland (5-1). In the 79th minute of play and on a free kick, he scored the last goal of his international career.
From 1952 to 1961, Piantoni played 37 matches under the blue jersey, scoring 18 goals.
Reconversion
After leaving Nice he became coach of the club of Carpentras from 1967 to 1971. He was later a member of the Federal Council of the French Football Federation (FFF) from 29 August 1970 to 31 December 1988.
He remained attached to the Lorraine and the club of Nancy. It contributes strongly to the revelation of Michel Platini. He also worked for several years as a commentator on football matches on Antenne 2 alongside Michel Drucker and Bernard Père.
A tribune of the Stade Marcel Picot, where AS Nancy-Lorraine bears his name.