Raoul Diagne

Raoul Diagne ( born November 10, 1910 in Saint- Laurent- du- Maroni, French Guiana; † 4 November 2002 in Créteil ) was a French football player and coach.

Club career

Raoul Diagne was the son of Senegalese politician Blaise Diagne, who was in 1914 the first black deputy in the French National Assembly, where he represented the French- dominated West Africa. After his parents - mother, Marie Odette was a fair-skinned Frenchwoman - who returned with him from French Guiana in metropolitan France, where Raoul continued his education at the Lycée Louis -le- Grand, he joined in 1930 the Racing Club de France Paris. In the summer of 1932, the professional Division 1 took up their game operation, the defender was far too Racings starting eleven and was even already become international ( see below). His decision for the Berufsspielertum gave him some family problems, because football games against payment himself not sent to a member of the upper class.

The 1.87 m tall, elegant and leggy defensive player, who is also national student champion in the high jump ( Best Performance 1,85 m ) was made ​​in 1929, impressed by his agility and his feel for the ball. He was also versatile, very durable and a " master of winning the ball by fair means ". Off the field he was considered a " favorite of women "; his habits was there, during the halftime break in the locker room to smoke a cigarette on a regular basis.

In Racing Paris, he was one of the lead players of a team, which since 1932 with numerous rounders from home and abroad and reinforced with Sid Kimpton had in particular a British coach; to Diagne appearance until 1940 included, inter alia, the French Veinante, Delfour, Mercier, Aston, Dupuis, Heisserer, Zatelli, the Englishman Kennedy as well as from Austria and Hungary Adelbrecht, Hiden, Jordan, Hiltl, Mathé and Weiskopf. In Division 1, the team was three times expensive third (1935, 1937 and 1939 ) and won the championship in 1936. This season, the outfield Diagne played the way several point games as a goalkeeper because occasionally airs prone number 1, Rudi Hiden, was entered into a strike and at times even had left Paris to give emphasis to the need for raising their salaries.

Even more successful Racing Paris was in the French Cup competition which the club in 1936, 1939 and 1940 decided for themselves. 1936, did the "Penguins" - as a common name in France for the players of the club - the 1-0 victory hard to overcome the defensive bulwark of Zweitdivisionärs OFC Charleville goalie to Darui and the Argentine defensive strategists Helenio Herrera. Three years later, however, the 3-1 over Lille Olympique, Racing had made it clear everything before half-time, although his assailants in goal for the Northern French, as in 1936, Julien Darui faced. The final 1940 was long contested, before the late goals for a 2-1 victory fell. For this finale - a few days before the invasion of German troops - were able Diagne and the now naturalized Hiden be exempt from military service; others like her teammates Veinante received no such special permit. The successes of 1936, which also came a Doublé because of triumph in Championship and National Cup are indeed remained the most important in Raoul Diagne Review ( " Such a date you will never forget! "), But an episode from the Cup final in 1939, at least as high waves struck: before kickoff led Diagne, Jordan and Heisserer a living penguin as a mascot to the Stade Olympique Yves- du- Manoir, which she had borrowed from a zoo.

This summer, Diagne left the occupied Paris and entered in the " Free French " for the Toulouse FC, ​​sometimes together with Dupuis and Zatelli, his teammates from Racing Club, as well as the internationals cellar and possibly Ben Bouali. There, too, he was successful and in 1941 after a 1-0 in the final against AS Saint- Étienne Cup winner in the unoccupied part of the country; subsequently failed the TFC on the way to the country, however, the final winner of the occupied zone, the Girondins AS du Port. 1943 was followed by the championship in the Südstaffel the first division; However, both titles are in France only as unofficial. In the 1943/44 season Raoul Diagne was a member of the Equipe Fédérale de Toulouse- Pyrénées that finished 6th in a nationwide round robin with 15 other regional selections ( instead of club teams). From 1944 he was still playing for amateur club FC Annecy, before he ended his career in 1946 in France. In 1947, he led the Senegalese club U.S. Gorée as a player-coach after a 2-1 final win against Jeanne d' Arc Dakar to win the title of the Coupe d' AOF, the cup competition of the colonial federation of French West Africa. He let the team play the first team of sub-Saharan Africa in the WM system.

Stations

• Racing Club de France, starting in 1932 in Paris Racing Club renamed ( 1930-1940 )
• Toulouse Football Club (1940-1943)
• Equipe Fédérale de Toulouse- Pyrénées (1943 /44)
• Football Club Annecy (1944-1946, as an amateur )
• Union Sportive de Gorée (May 1947 -? , As player-coach )

In the National Team

Between February 1931 and January 1940 denied Raoul Diagne A total of 18 internationals for France; one hit him did not succeed in this county. He was the first black player who was used for the Bleus. His international career slowly settled on (second international match in 1933, the third in 1935 ), and until January 1937, he became a regular player. He was employed at four different positions, seven times as a defender and eleven times as an external rotor. So he stood in 1935 three times on the right side of defense next to Étienne Mattler because Jules Vandooren had not yet regained its former shape after an injury again, starting in 1938 in nine games exclusively to the left connecting Paris before his fellow members Gusti Jordan.

Diagne also belonged to the French squad for the World Cup 1938, where he was employed in both encounters the tricolore Équipe. Twice he has also played against teams from the German-speaking countries, with France as the loser went both times of space: in January 1937 against Austria (1:2 in Paris) and in March of the same year against Germany ( 0:4 in Stuttgart). A larger number of internationals left him by the war denied, because after his last game in early 1940, it came in the following almost five years until the liberation of the country only to two parts of France in March 1942, for which the responsibility for the selection sélectionneur Gaston Barreau predominantly resorted to players from the occupied north.

Palmarčs

• French Champion: 1936 ( and 1943 champion of Südstaffel [ unofficial title] )
• French Cup Winners: 1936, 1939, 1940 ( and 1941 Cup Winners' Cup in the unoccupied part of France [ unofficial title] )
• 18 A- international matches ( no hit) for France; World Cup 1938 participant
• At least 124 games and 2 goals in Division 1
• Winner of the Coupe d' Afrique Occidentale Française: 1947

Life after the player time

The politician 's son has remained connected even after 1946 the football, has completed a coaching education and training in this new role at several clubs in the West African homeland of his father. It was followed by engagements in Belgium and Algeria before moving to the independence of the country built up the national team of Senegal in the early 1960s and managed. This was achieved in the Jeux de l' Amitié 1963 in Dakar a 2-0 victory over the French B selection. In this country he is regarded as the "father of national football ." Later Raoul Diagne has again settled in France, where he died a few days before his 92nd birthday.