Lucien Muller

Lucien Muller ( born September 3, 1934 in Bischwiller / Bas- Rhin ) is a French former football player and coach.

• 2.1 stations

• 3.1 As a player
• 3.2 As a coach

The player

The club career

"The little Kopa "

There are in many ways striking parallels between the career of the Alsatian and the great Raymond Kopa: as that started the technically gifted Lucien Muller his career as a free-scoring winger to make later as a runner or inside forward the play of his respective teams. As Kopa, he moved from an amateur club ( in the case of Muller's the native FC Bischwiller, from the well " Willy " Love or Oscar Heisserer had emerged ) first to a not particularly outstanding in this time professional club (Racing Strasbourg), before moving to the to the 1950s not only dominant in France Stade de Reims came; as Kopa was also there to Muller national team and then committed by Real Madrid. And finally, both returned to their years in Spain to Stade de Reims. So it is hardly surprising that Muller occasionally as le petit Kopa was dubbed - especially since "the great and the little Kopa " have also played together for three years in a team.

Muller at Europe's big teams

As Strasbourg relegation end of the season 1956/57, in the second division, joined the Muller Toulouse FC, ​​but where jumped out only midfield places in Division 1. In the early summer of 1959 then surprised Stade de Reims, who had just lost a European Cup final against Real Madrid in four years for the second time to have also committed the public with the message, in addition to Madrid returnees Kopa Lucien Muller.

The first common season (1959 /60) ended promptly with Muller's first national champion. In this environment, bristling with internationals (all eleven starting players were or were appointed to the Équipe Tricolore ), a trainer ( Albert Batteux, at the same time national coach ), who had free rein to his players and had nevertheless formed the team tactically to form a unit, and a storm, who scored 109 goals in 38 league games, came Muller's qualities as a passer and scorer for the first time the full. In the end he was 13-goal scorer in the team 's internal rating "only" fifth ( behind Fontaine, Piantoni Vincent and the "real Kopa " ), but his commitment had paid off for him and for the club already. Already at the beginning of the season Lucien Muller was also the first to be run for the national team.

From 1960/1961 Muller played back further than external rotor; This year Reims was only third in league, but at the end of the 1961/62 season won the Alsace in the Champagne its second national title. Then he walked in the footsteps of his great idol and played at Real Madrid; Alfredo Di Stéfano personally had Muller addressed in December 1961 at the banquet after the international match France against Spain at the club change. With the " Royal " He was in the next three years three times Spanish champion and was in 1964 in the final of the European Cup, which, however, 1:3 went against lost Inter Milan - Di Stefano, Puskas, Gento and Santa María, which also Kopa had already played together, had crossed its zenith at this time, the younger players such as Amancio and Muller could not fully compensate for this. Lucien Muller moved to FC Barcelona in 1965, remained there for three years, with the Catalans won National Cup and UEFA Cup in 1968 and returned back to Reims. He was not too bad for the club where his rise began in the second league yet to throw his skill in the pan and to complete 65 games ( 5 goals). When he stepped down in the summer of 1970, he had helped to Stade de Reims was top notch again.

Stations

• FC Bischwiller (up to 1953)
• RC Strasbourg (1953-1957)
• Toulouse FC (1957-1959)
• Stade de Reims (1959-1962)
• Real Madrid (1962-1965)
• FC Barcelona (1965-1968)
• Stade de Reims (1968-1970, in Division 2 )

The National Players

Between October 1959 and April 1964 denied Lucien Muller 16 games for the French national football team (14 in his time at Reims, two in Madrid), scoring three goals. He took in 1960 also at the Équipe Tricolore for the disappointingly verlaufenen finals of the European Championship on home soil in part ( a bet). After a two year break, during which he was no longer considered as "international professional", he was in France's squad for the World Cup 1966. Nevertheless, although the French had there needs a playmaker like Muller urgent national coach Henri Guérin let him throughout the group stage stewing on the bench - and after les Bleus had to start early trip home; shortly thereafter declared Lucien Muller that he would no longer be available for the national team.

The coach

From the 1970s Muller has coached several clubs in Spain's top division, including FC Barcelona. In 1983, he led the RCD Mallorca in the Primera División. From 1983 to 1986 he was head coach at AS Monaco; In this capacity he managed what had eluded him as a player: In 1985, he took with the elf from the Principality of the French Cup. After his retirement from public life he has the Monegasque for years advised and made ​​aware of young talent. The coach activity is incidentally remained one of the few aspects in which distinguish the "small" and " large Kopa ".

Stations

• Club Deportivo Castellón (1970-1974)
• Burgos Club de Fútbol (1975 /76)
• Real Zaragoza (1976 /77)
• Burgos Club de Fútbol (1977 /78)
• Fútbol Club Barcelona (1978 /79)
• Burgos Club de Fútbol (1979-1981)
• Real Club Deportivo Mallorca (1981-1983)
• Association Sportive de Monaco FC (1983-1986)
• Real Club Deportivo Mallorca (1987 /88)
• Club Deportivo Castellón (1990-1992)

Palmarčs

As a player

• French Champion: 1960, 1962 ( with Reims )
• French Cup Winners: None
• Spanish Champion: 1963, 1964, 1965 ( with Madrid)
• Spanish Cup winner: 1968 ( with Barcelona)
• UEFA Cup winner: 1966 ( with Barcelona)
• European Champion Clubs' Cup: Finalist 1964 ( with Madrid)
• 249 missions and 55 goals in the D1 ( 73/17 for Strasbourg, 69/19 Toulouse, 107/19 for Reims )
• 16 'A' matches, 3 goals; Participants at the European Championship in 1960 and the 1966 World Cup

As a coach

• French Cup Winners: 1985 ( with Monaco)