The Football Tragic

Marseille's success in the first two seasons of the 1970s fired the ambitions of its charismatic chairman Marcel Leclerc, and he went in search of fresh recruits. Josip Skoblar had topped the French goalscoring charts in Marseille's two championship-winning seasons, but the Malian striker Salif Keita, of St. Etienne, had come a close second on both occasions. What better way to create a strike-force that would frighten all of Europe than by signing Keita as well?

It proved to be a terrible mistake, and no-one felt the effect of it more than Roger Magnusson.

The reason, once again, was the league's restriction on foreign players. Only two were allowed to play for a French club at any one time, and with Skoblar and Magnusson already at the Stade Vélodrome, Keita made three.

The truth was that Marseille, and the French federation as well, were desperately hoping that Keita would agree to become a naturalised Frenchman, as many players of African origin had already done. But they had misunderstood their man badly.

Salif Keita was an extraordinary figure. A revelation in his native country as a teenager, he was spotted by a St. Etienne scout and brought to France for a trial. The picaresque story of his journey to France is worth an article in itself, but suffice it to say that when he eventually got to St. Etienne and began representing the Stéphanois in Ligue 1, he hit French football like a bullet. A fast, powerful, technically adept striker who played in a refreshingly fearless manner, he immediately became one of the most prolific scorers on the continent.

Ever since the late sixties, with French football somewhat in the doldrums, the FFF had been keen to see Keita don the rooster jersey. What, after all, could he achieve playing for Mali? The transfer to Marseille, and the issue of the presence of two foreigners at the club already, seemed likely to tip the balance.

But Keita was a proud African, and a man of determination and resolve as well. He angrily rebuffed the blandishments of both the Marseille management and the French federation, and remained a Malian. He later became president of the Malian football federation, and his famous nephews, Seydou Keita and Mohamed Sissoko, both represented Mali when they could have played for France.

Keita's principled stand put Marseille in an awkward position. The Skoblar-Magnusson partnership had blossomed, but if the new star recruit was to appear, one of them had to be jettisoned. In the event, it was Magnusson who regularly found himself on the outer. In desperation, the club tried to convince Magnusson too to naturalise, but he was having none of it. "I'm a Swede, I'll always be a Swede."

Chaos followed at l'OM both in the boardroom and on the bench. Leclerc was overthrown, the club went through four coaches in 1973 alone (Marseille remains a world leader in manager recycling to this day), Keita left the club in a huff, and Magnusson followed shortly afterwards. Needing to recruit some big names to replace these two, Marseille signed Brazil's 1970 hero Jairzinho, and his compatriot and friend Paulo Cesar. Alas, Jairzinho was made of different stuff to the gentle Magnusson: within his first season, he received a lengthy ban for assaulting a linesman, and was quickly out the door. Marseille's fortunes in the seventies plummeted: in France, the decade was to belong to Keita's old club St. Etienne.

Then there was the matter of Sweden. Magnusson's club troubles again affected his fortunes with the national team, and by the time Sweden had squeaked through to the 1974 World Cup, he was out of the picture. Instead, it was his younger brother Benno Magnusson who took to the field in Germany, in a tournament in which the Swedes, inspired by the young forward Ralf Edström, did surprisingly well.

Magnusson moved on to Red Star of Paris, but a knee injury hampered his career thereafter. He spent two uneventful seasons in Paris, then returned to Sweden and amateur football. He qualified as a high school PE teacher, settled down with his family in the town of Kristianstad, and Planet Football largely forgot him. His great promise had been only very partially fulfilled.

And Magnusson today?

"I go for walks, I get out a bit, I do the shopping," he told an interviewer from the Marseille newspaper La Provence, who came to interview him on the occasion of his 75th birthday in 2020. The article was adorned with a photo of a beaming Magnusson surrounded by his five grandchildren. "One day, they'll understand what Magnusson meant to us [in Marseille]," the journalist commented at the end of the article.

A voracious reader who spends plenty of time in the local library, Magnusson still keenly follows the news from the part of the world that took him to its heart. He still speaks excellent French - with, touchingly, a distinct Provencal twang. He was prevented by illness from attending the opening of the new Stade Vélodrome in 2014, an occasion to which a panoply of former l'OM stars were invited. But he always makes sure to watch Marseille's games on TV when he can.

"75! Yes, I'm really old now. Josip [Skoblar] was 79 on the 11th of March. L'Équipe got that wrong, you know, they said the 12th, but it's actually the 11th..."

"I'm old, but life goes on. Thanks again for thinking of me..."

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:00 AM 0 comments

Despite his burgeoning cult status at Marseille, for his first two seasons at the club Roger Magnusson was still "owned" by Juventus. By 1970, however, with Serie A's foreigner ban still in place, the bianconeri had abandoned any hopes of luring him back to Turin for a handful of European matches per season. They decided to cut their losses.

Magnusson's compatriot Ove Kindvall, whose goals had helped propel his club Feyenoord to a European Cup win earlier in the year, was keen to bring the now 25-year-old winger to Holland. And the reigning European club champions did put in an impressive bid. But Magnusson had by now found a home and an adoring fanbase in Marseille, and he was only too happy to stay. On 12 July 1970, for the comparatively modest sum of 630,000 francs, Magnusson was sold to Marseille.

His partnership with the Croatian goal machine Josip Skoblar, begun in the 1969/70 season, continued to blossom. With their two foreign recruits leading the line, Marseille surged to their first league title in 23 years in the 1970/71 season, thanks largely to Skoblar's magnificent haul of 44 goals. Magnusson had been the supplier for many of these.

The following season proved to be the zenith of this first great l'OM side since the war. They won a league and cup double, the first in their history. It perhaps helped their cause that their involvement in the European Cup was brief - they were overpowered by Johan Cruyff's rampant Ajax in the second round. 

The French Cup final of 1972 was probably the highlight of Magnusson's career, in more ways than one. Held at the newly refurbished Parc des Princes (where the competition showpiece would stay until the 1998 World Cup), it attracted the largest crowd which that venue had ever seen, most of whom had travelled up from the south coast to cheer their heroes to a historic double.

Marseille's opponents in the final, Bastia, were no slouches. They had beaten Marseille twice in the league that season; two months earlier, at the Stade Velodrome, they had dented l'OM's championship run with a shock 2-0 home defeat. Up against the rugged Bastia left-back Jean-Claude Tosi, Magnusson admitted that he had barely touched the ball.

Now, in Paris, all was different. In the first half of the Cup final, with Marseille dominant in all sectors of the pitch, Magnusson was imperious. Beating Tosi and the other defenders at will, he essentially did what he pleased, and laid on the first goal for his left-wing partner Didier Couécou with an insidious cross from the right.

The second half saw Marseille go into their shell somewhat, with Bastia launching plenty of attacks of their own, driven on by their New Caledonian forward Marc-Kanyan Case. On 73 minutes, however, came a moment which has gone down in l'OM folklore.

Receiving the ball from Jacques Novi, Magnusson provided ten seconds of pure brilliance, bamboozling Tosi and the Bastia captain Georges Franceschetti before sending in a cross for his colleague, Skoblar, to head the ball in for Marseille's second. It was the apotheosis of the celebrated Skoblar-Magnusson partnership.

Franceschetti scored an excellent headed goal five minutes from the close, but it was too late for the Corsicans: Marseille had their coveted double.

The future looked bright for both club and player. Still only 27, Magnusson could look forward to another crack at the European Cup, and perhaps a renewal of his national team career, as Sweden headed into the 1974 qualifying series.

But the Swede-abroad curse struck again when a greedy, short-sighted decision by the Marseille management put an end to the club's early-seventies success. To be concluded in Part 5.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:41 AM 0 comments

In 1968, following his European-Cup-only season with Juventus, Roger Magnusson was put out on loan again. This time, however, his luck was in. Olympique de Marseille, his new digs, would be his home for the next six years, and would make him a true local idol.

Right from the start, the tall Swede's dazzling right-wing runs delighted the fans. Unlike some of his previous coaches, the wily veteran in charge of Marseille, Mario Zatelli, simply encouraged Magnusson to get the ball and dribble past his man, as he loved to do. 

Marseille were stuck at the bottom of Ligue 1 at the start of the 1968/69 season. Following Magnusson's arrival, they swiftly moved up the table and finished in the top half. More encouragingly still, they won the French Cup against longtime rivals Girondins de Bordeaux, who were firm favourites. Although Magnusson was, by his own admission, not at his best in the match, goals from Jacques Novi and the Cameroonian Joseph Maya gave Marseille a 2-0 win, and Magnusson had his first experience of a passionate Marseillaise celebration. "All the shops were closed, and I even got a bit afraid [of being crushed by the fans]. It was just unforgettable."

It was Marseille's first silverware since 1948, but there were even better years to come.

In November 1969, l'OM followed the acquisition of Magnusson with perhaps their shrewdest signing ever. The Croatian striker Josip Skoblar, who had played for Yugoslavia in the 1962 World Cup, was scoring freely for German side Hannover 96. Surprisingly, he was transferred mid-season to Marseille, where he had previously excelled on loan, and immediately formed a memorable attacking partnership with the Swedish wing maestro. Quick, positionally astute and a devastating finisher, Skoblar was to become Ligue 1's most prolific marksman.

Skoblar's first (partial) season at the club saw Marseille finish in second place. It was also in the midst of this season that Magnusson made his crucial contribution to Sweden's World Cup qualification, and with Feyenoord's Ove Kindvall and Örjan Persson of Rangers also in fine fettle prior to the 1970 tournament, it seemed as if the Swedes could well qualify from their less-than-formidable first-round group.

But Roger Magnusson did not go to Mexico.

Once again, the curse of being a Swede abroad struck, although in a slightly different manner. The 1970 World Cup began surprisingly early - at the end of May - when Ligue 1 was still in full swing. Some players in similar situations were able to arrange to be released from their clubs in time. But Marseille were adamant: their star winger would stay and finish the season. They did quote a possible compensation payment, but it was much more than the Swedish federation could afford (as Marseille well knew). And so Magnusson, at the peak of his career, was denied the chance of representing his country in the biggest event of all.

Sweden's performance at the World Cup in Mexico was, in a word, insipid. Losing meekly to Italy in their opening game, they struggled to gain ascendancy against a bruisingly physical Israeli team, drawing 1-1, and a very late goal against a defensive Uruguay was not enough to see them through to the quarter-finals. Magnusson was much missed.

Back in France, however, his club career went from strength to strength, culminating in a historic "double" in 1972. More in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 6:15 PM 0 comments

Roger Magnusson was born in March 1945 in the little town of Mönsteras on Sweden's south-eastern coast. His father was a good amateur footballer - an outside-right, like his son - and the young Magnusson imbibed the game from a very young age. It was a time when all aspiring wing artists looked for inspiration to the legendary Stanley Matthews, and from his earliest years Roger Magnusson, like the English doyen, developed his formidable technique by juggling a tennis ball in his back yard. And when it came to street kickarounds with his friends, he was the one who always wanted to pick his way through a crowd of opponents and score. "I was a dribbler as soon as I started playing," he recalled many years later.

Beginning his career at the Atvidabergs club, then in the Swedish second division, Magnusson quickly came to broader notice, and he became a regular in the Swedish junior team at the age of 16. In 1964, a few months after his 19th birthday, he made his debut for the senior national team in a Nordic championship match against Denmark. It was a memorable day for the young winger; a 4-1 victory in which he scored the final goal and excelled overall.

Foreign clubs immediately showed an interest in signing the youngster. The Atvidabergs club had as its patron the Facit homewares company, and the club chairman took advantage of the fact that Facit's South American representative was vice-president of Rio's Flamengo club to secure Magnusson a trial period in Brazil. The Mengão were keen to secure the teenager's services, but soon an even bigger name appeared on the horizon, as the Daily Mirror reported in early 1965:

"Is there a new Stanley Matthews or Garrincha on the Soccer horizon? Sweden, who play England in Gothenburg on Sunday, believe they have just that. He is Roger Magnusson, 19, who wins his SIXTH cap on the right wing against England. And the Swedes are not the only country raving about this youngster. Flamengo of Rio de Janeiro and Juventus of Turin have both made offers for him."

Juventus seemed a perfect fit. There had been a long history of Swedish players finding a home in Italy, beginning with the celebrated Gre-No-Li trio (Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl, and Nils Liedholm) who had starred for AC Milan in the fifties. Another of the 1958 heroes, the little winger Kurt Hamrin, had long been a fixture at Fiorentina.

The Turin club duly signed the new young star. But there was a small problem - one which was to recur, in various guises, throughout Magnusson's career.

In 1965, the Italian football federation enacted a blanket ban on foreign players in Serie A (unless, like the oriundi of the past, they were prepared to assume Italian nationality). Magnusson's was one of the first transfers to be affected by this new regulation, and Juventus were obliged to send him out on loan to Germany's Cologne. In the Bundesliga he was played out of position in a striking role, and failed to shine.

Back at Juventus at the start of the 1967/68 season, Magnusson was still subject to the foreigner ban, but Juventus had qualified for the European Cup, and were keen to use the young winger in their European ties. And so it was that, absurdly, Magnusson spent a season at Juventus in which he could not take part in the local league. His form in Europe was impressive - he scored two crucial goals which aided the bianconeri in their progress to the semi-finals - but not surprisingly, he was keen to move again after his bizarre sojourn in Italy. 

It was his next club which would finally provide Magnusson with an environment in which he could flourish. More in Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 10:09 PM 0 comments

The sixties was a frustrating period for the Swedish national team. After their superb achievement of reaching the final at their "home" World Cup in 1958, they met with a series of close-call qualifying failures. Eliminated by Switzerland in a playoff for the 1962 World Cup, and losing to defending champions the USSR at the quarter-final stage of the 1964 Nations Cup, they seemed well-placed for a berth in England in 1966 after holding the fancied West Germans to a draw in Berlin, in their otherwise undemanding group. But in the return in Stockholm, an Uwe Seeler-inspired German side came from behind to win 2-1, and the Swedes missed out again.

There were changes afoot in European football around this period. Many smaller nations were embracing professionalism for the first time, and rapid improvement resulted - spectacularly so, in the case of the Netherlands. But Sweden stuck resolutely to its amateur system, and ambitious young players such as the little winger Kurt Hamrin had to look for opportunities elsewhere, as had distinguished predecessors such as Nils Liedholm and Gunnar Gren. Hamrin found stardom at Fiorentina, and his experience at the highest level was a boon to the national side. But others who ventured abroad did not always meet with similar success.

The qualifying series for Mexico 1970 pitted Sweden against France and Norway. The French had qualified for the previous tournament but had been uninspiring, both then and subsequently. It looked like the Swedes were in with a decent chance.

Their hopes grew inordinately thanks to a shock early result: the French went down 1-0 at home against minnows Norway, whom the Swedes had already trounced in Stockholm. After Orvar Bergmark's Swedish side won away against their neighbours as well (helped by one of the most sweetly-struck volleys of all time), they could assure themselves of qualification with a win over France at home.

It was, however, a laboured Swedish performance against the French in Stockholm. True, their new star, Feyenoord's Ove Kindvall, won and converted a rather soft penalty late in the first half. But as the match wore on, the French looked more and more dangerous, and the Swedes less and less effective.

All that changed with a second-half substitution. The new arrival, a 24-year-old outside-right, suddenly made the Swedes look a different side with his fine close control, swift movement and penetration. On 65 minutes, Kindvall's smartly-taken second goal killed off any lingering French hopes, and at the final whistle Sweden could celebrate their first appearance at a World Cup since 1958.

But the game-changing substitute would not be there. 

Not because of injury. Not because of a dip in form - indeed, he was in the form of his life prior to the event. Not because of any personal animus towards the coach, or vice versa.

It was, instead, one of the many cruel ironies which attended his status as a Swede abroad, in those distant pre-Bosman days, that prevented Roger Magnusson from displaying his talents on the biggest stage.

This is the story of the "Swedish Garrincha", one of the finest wingers of his day, who never attained the wider renown that his footballing prowess deserved. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 12:04 PM 0 comments