The Football Tragic

January 9, 1988. The former Magdeburg captain Wolfgang Seguin is at a luncheon reception in the West German town of Saarbrücken, where his old club colleagues have come to take part in a veterans' tournament. He suddenly notices that two of his compatriots are missing: the old attacking duo of Martin Hoffmann and Jürgen Sparwasser.

In the case of Hoffmann, the mystery is readily solved; the notoriously absent-minded "little Martin" got lost on the way, and trudges in a quarter of an hour late. But Sparwasser does not appear.

Seguin goes to Sparwasser's hotel room, along with the club masseur. There, he finds a letter from the former international, addressed to his club colleagues. Seguin reads the letter, and then turns sadly to the masseur. "We won't see him again," he says.

It had been no snap decision, no Alec Leamas-style climb over the Berlin Wall. Sparwasser's defection had taken a good deal of planning, and nearly came unstuck at various stages.

In 1987, in the wake of glasnost, the rules governing visits by GDR citizens to relations in the West had been slightly relaxed, and Christa Sparwasser was invited to a family reunion in the West German town of Lüneburg. By chance, a veterans' tournament was taking place in Saarbrücken at the same time. The Sparwassers sensed an opportunity.

Things almost went wrong immediately, when a district officer refused Christa permission for the trip. An enraged Jürgen gave the functionary a piece of his mind, adding some frank comments about the GDR in the process.

They thought they had blown it, but gave it another try. This time, a more pliant official treated them with unexpected courtesy, and the request was approved. Part One successfully accomplished.

Part Two was fraught with worry. A two-hour delay on the Magdeburg players' bus journey to West Germany understandably had Sparwasser in a panic. Had their plans been discovered? (They had discussed them on nature walks - the only safe way to do so in East Germany.) Seguin remembered in hindsight that his old teammate was unusually nervous at the time. But there was no official car to drag Sparwasser back to some distant location for interrogation; his passport was waved through along with the others.

On arrival at his hotel, Jürgen Sparwasser called his wife, using the agreed password. All was ready.

The next morning, the Magdeburg players went on a stroll through the city. Sparwasser pretended to have left some money behind in the hotel. Back he went, to be met there by an acquaintance from the town. After writing the letter - an attempt to explain his act to some of his closest friends, who he might never see again - he hopped into the acquaintance's car, and they were off to Frankfurt and freedom.

The next day, a grim paragraph appeared in the GDR official media. "The presence of a veteran team from 1.FC Magdeburg in Saarbrücken was used by anti-sports forces to poach Jürgen Sparwasser, who betrayed his team."

Sparwasser was long retired, and his defection caused few ripples; he was no Rudolf Nureyev or Viktor Korchnoi. But it was still a decision involving considerable sacrifice; the Sparwassers' daughter, then pregnant, was unable to accompany them to the West, but they obtained her blessing before taking the fateful step. They were not to know that within less than two years the Wall would be down, and the Sparwassers could be reunited after all.

Today, Jürgen and Christa Sparwasser live only a few miles away from both their daughter Silke and their grandson Philipp. After a dispiriting spell in management, the 1974 East German hero was able to pursue his interest in youth development, working in various academies and writing his own football primer for young players (which can be seen on his website). "When I'm on the pitch with children, I'm in my element," he remarked in an interview a few years ago.

He used to play in charity games with fellow luminaries of the past, but physically it's getting a bit difficult now. In his last match, he relates, he scored a very nice goal but almost injured himself in the course of the goal celebration (!). "That was a sign, that it was enough." 

At least he finished with a goal. Perhaps not as famous as the one in 1974, but, as he put it, the technique was still there.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:01 AM 0 comments

With the 1974 World Cup over, the players got back to the grind of club competition. For many of the winning West German side, that also meant a defence of the European Cup with Bayern Munich.

The Bavarians had, in most critics' estimation, been very lucky to win the competition in 1974. They had needed penalties to get past modest Atvidaberg of Sweden in the first round, before being given a rough ride by their East German neighbours Dynamo Dresden in the second. To top it off, they needed a last-minute equaliser to take the final to a replay, which they duly won.

Their first opponents in the 1974/75 competition would be the East German champions Magdeburg, featuring many of the players who had inflicted West Germany's only defeat on the road to World Cup triumph - including the goalscorer in that game, Jürgen Sparwasser.

The first leg, in Munich, began with a shock. In the very first minute, the lively Martin Hoffmann advanced down the left and fired in a cross which deflected off the Bayern fullback Johnny Hansen into his own net. A stunned Bayern failed to make headway against a determined Magdeburg for the rest of the half, and just before the interval Magdeburg scored a second, in fine style. When Klaus Wunder got himself tackled trying to dribble out of defence, the ball ultimately broke to Sparwasser on the left. One-on-one with the famous Beckenbauer, he utterly embarrassed Der Kaiser with a deft turn which left him sprawling, before firing the ball home with his right foot.

The defending champions looked down and out. But, as countless teams have had cause to reflect over the years, the Germans are never so dangerous as when they are two goals down. In this case, however, their recovery was aided by two highly dubious goals in reply.

Beckenbauer came forward with more regularity and purpose after the break, and Bayern started to look more dangerous. Six minutes after the restart, Uli Hoeness collided with the Magdeburg captain Manfred Zapf in the box. It looked a 50-50 challenge, with Hoeness in the wrong if anyone was. But the Bayern player writhed theatrically, and a penalty was given, Gerd Muller dispatching it neatly.

Then Beckenbauer, coming forward again - as the East German commentator remarked, it was remiss of Magdeburg not to have detailed a man to mark him on his forays upfield - played in Muller, who pivoted to beat his man and score. "Typical Muller-goal," remarked the commentator. It was indeed, but for one important detail: Der Bomber quite clearly controlled the ball with his arm when turning his man.

The momentum was now with the home side, and they scored a third six minutes later, a fine run and cross from Hoeness being turned into his own net by the unfortunate Detlef Enge. Sparwasser headed against the post near the close, while Beckenbauer, still being given the run of the country, forced a fine save out of the Magdeburg keeper Ulrich Schulze with a long-range shot.

A painful defeat for Magdeburg, and their heads still appeared to be down for the home leg. This time, alert to the danger posed by Sparwasser, Bayern left nothing to chance, giving the job of tight-marking him to their dependable hatchet man, Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck. Bayern went 2-0 up with a pair of superb goals, Muller as always providing the finishing touch to the lead-up work, in this case mostly from Hoeness. Again it was the Hoffmann-Sparwasser pairing that provided Magdeburg with their consolation, Hoffmann's fine shot rebounding off the bar for Sparwasser to head in. 

A tie that had begun so brightly for Magdeburg had ended with a whimper. Yet Magdeburg had proven that they could fight their corner at this level. And with plenty of young players in their ranks, the future looked bright for East Germany's first European trophy winners.

Magdeburg's golden days didn't last, however. Crucial to their success had been their much-loved coach, Heinz Krügel. Gradually, Krügel began to fall foul of the officials of the East German Communist Party, who considered him a political liability. Eventually, in 1976, he was removed by party fiat from his position as Magdeburg head coach. It was a lesson in GDR sporting politics which Sparwasser would not forget.

As his club and international career drew to a close, Sparwasser qualified as a sporting trainer and was engaged as an assistant coach at Magdeburg. He had no love for the communist authorities, and had decided to fly under the political radar as much as possible, particularly with the example of Krügel in mind. He became more and more interested in youth development, and planned to undertake a doctoral thesis in sports science, with an interest in reforming the GDR's school sports system. 

But the authorities had other ideas: they wanted him to take charge of Magdeburg. He refused several times, and each time his political situation became more difficult. In his 2010 autobiography, he wrote bitterly of the district commissioner who had also been his old coach Krügel's nemesis. "[He] unscrupulously destroyed the professional career of my coach, and now my own, and this ultimately meant an uncertain future for me and my family."

Family, indeed, was central to Sparwasser's life. He was devoted to his wife Christa, a childhood sweetheart, and their daughter had already run into trouble with the authorities as well. 

The Sparwassers began to talk about escaping to the West. And the chance presented itself in unexpected fashion. To be concluded in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:59 AM 1 comments

The early 1970s were heady days for East German football. World Cup qualification, a fine performance by the national team at the Munich Olympics, and increasing club success in Europe. Dynamo Dresden had caught the eye by knocking 1973 finalists Juventus out of the 1973/74 European Cup, before going out narrowly to eventual champions Bayern Munich in a wonderfully exciting tie which yielded 13 goals. At the end of the same season, it was the turn of Jürgen Sparwasser's Magdeburg, who became the first club from East Germany to gain a European title with victory in the Cup-Winners' Cup final.

Their opponents, AC Milan, were the defending champions and firm favourites. Still directed from midfield by the elegant Gianni Rivera, they were thought to have too much experience and quality for their opponents, who had enjoyed a relatively easy passage to the final.

But the match, held in Rotterdam's De Kuip stadium, in some ways presaged Italy's - and Rivera's - unimpressive performance at the upcoming World Cup. The Italians found themselves unable to find their rhythm against the hard running and tackling of the fast Magdeburg side, and they conceded an unfortunate own goal late in the first half when Enrico Lanzi deflected young Detlef Raugust's cutback past his own goalkeeper. Milan's attempts to get back into the game thereafter were smothered by the rugged Magdeburg defending, and sixteen minutes from the end, Wolfgang Seguin snuck in cleverly at the back post to score a second.

Sparwasser had an excellent game, combining his typical pace and enthusiasm with intelligence and unselfish teamwork. Near the end, he almost scored a superb goal on the turn, only a fine save from his angled shot preventing the score from becoming embarrassing for the rossoneri. 

Sparwasser and his youthful colleague in the Magdeburg forward line, the quick winger Martin Hoffmann, were to have an excellent World Cup too. Starting with a 2-0 win over Australia, with Sparwasser to the fore and Hoffmann making a vital contribution from the bench, they were held 1-1 by Chile in a very lively game in which the European side kept the upper hand for most of the 90 minutes. "How this man [Sparwasser] has grown in his recent appearances for the national team," was the remark of an East German commentator prior to the crunch match against the West Germans. "Enormously!"

Oddly enough, the game which was to make Jürgen Sparwasser famous was, on the whole, not one of his best. Although the East Germans had set out to attack their other group opponents, the manager Georg Buschner wisely pursued a policy of tight man-marking and counter-attack against the feared hosts. As a result, the West Germans dominated the game territorially, and Sparwasser in attack was a peripheral figure. The true heroes of the game for Buschner's side were the tireless fullbacks, Siegmar Wätzlich and Lothar Kurbjuweit, who completely stifled the effectiveness of Jürgen Grabowski and Uli Hoeness respectively.

The West German defence, as the late Rale Rasic observed after their game against Australia, was vulnerable. With Franz Beckenbauer a little too cavalier in his "attacking sweeper" role, Helmut Schoen's team gifted the East Germans a number of chances on the break in the first half. The best of them fell to the midfielder Hans-Jürgen Kreische, who contrived to miss an open goal when Reinhard Lauck hit the byline and pulled the ball back. 

The hosts continued to press after the break, but their shots from distance (often the only option against the packed East German defence) were poor, and their key attacking men were being snuffed out by the terrier-like marking of the Easterners. The West German cause was not helped by two bizarre substitutions, Wolfgang Overath making way for a plainly out-of-form Günter Netzer, and Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck being inexplicably replaced by the veteran defender Horst-Dieter Höttges, a veteran of the 1966 World Cup final. With the East Germans dangerously quick on the breakaway, Höttges was the very last player the West Germans needed on the pitch.

And sure enough, when Sparwasser received the ball in an advanced position some thirteen minutes from the close, he treated Höttges like the proverbial witches' hat before finishing smartly past Sepp Maier. The East Germans had pulled off a famous upset.

There were rumours after the tournament that Sparwasser had been showered with unheard-of rewards by the GDR government following his deciding goal - a house, a car, etc. - but in an interview in the West many years later, he dismissed these claims as nonsense. 

The rest of the tournament was to be anti-climactic for the East Germans. Defeat in a tight match against Brazil was followed by a 2-0 loss to the rampant Dutch, and although Buschner's men changed back to an attacking posture for their final, meaningless match against Argentina, they could only manage a 1-1 draw.

In Part 3: Sparwasser's club fortunes following the memorable World Cup appearance - including a return meeting with Beckenbauer, in which Sparwasser did not come off worse.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 2:30 PM 0 comments

It was football's ultimate Cold War encounter. West Germany versus East Germany, at the 1974 World Cup. Some 150 miles northwest of the Berlin Wall, the communist and capitalist Germanies spent 90 minutes slugging it out in the quintessential match-as-metaphor. And despite home advantage and the presence of such luminaries as Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and Sepp Maier in the West German side, it was the Easterners who triumphed, thanks to a well-taken goal by the Magdeburg star Jürgen Sparwasser.

The rest of the tournament saw Beckenbauer and co. pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to return to form and ultimately claim the title, while East Germany went out with a whimper in the second stage. But no matter: the point had been made, the bragging rights were gained. And Sparwasser quickly became an idol in the communist "half" of the divided country.

But thirteen years later, there was a wry twist to the tale, one which attracted little notice outside of the two Germanies. Jürgen Sparwasser, the hero of Hamburg, defected to the West.

The reasons why he did so were complex, and indicative of the manifold ways in which sport became tangled up with politics behind the Iron Curtain.

Born in 1948 in the small industrial town of Halberstadt, Sparwasser began his career at the local club under the watchful eye of the coach, who also happened to be his father. His talent was quickly recognised, and he was recruited to the region's most prestigious club, Magdeburg, where he would stay for the next sixteen years.

At international level, his career began with a bang: scoring in his first youth international, against Bulgaria, he also played a key role in the East German youth team's surprise victory in the 1965 UEFA youth championship in West Germany, scoring two goals in the final against England. Along the way, the Easterners also thrashed a Netherlands side which included a teenage Johan Cruyff. (In a curious foretaste of the future, West Germany beat the Dutch 2-1 at the event, with a young Berti Vogts marking Cruyff...)

Eventually Sparwasser became a part of the senior national team as well, and won a bronze medal with the East Germans at the 1972 Olympics - again, an event held in West Germany - scoring five goals along the way. This success was followed by a first-ever World Cup qualification in 1974, with a prolific new striker, Hansa Rostock's Joachim Streich, forming a dangerous partnership with Sparwasser.

At club level, he remained with Magdeburg despite relegation in the late sixties, helped to bring them back up to the Oberliga, and became part of the core group of players who were to make the club a force not only at home but in Europe in the seventies.

Magdeburg, and Sparwasser, came to wider notice when they pulled off a considerable shock by beating AC Milan in the final of the 1974 Cup-Winners Cup. That match, and more, in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:17 AM 0 comments

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

On the morning of his knee operation, Jean-Pierre Adams was in good spirits, despite having his coaching course interrupted by yet another niggling injury. "It's all fine, I'm in great shape," he told his wife Bernadette. It was a routine operation, meant to take only a couple of hours.

Long after it was supposed to be done and dusted, Bernadette had heard nothing from the hospital. She rang, and was fobbed off. She and her children began to worry. On the fifth call, she was finally passed on to a doctor, who told her to come at once.

An anaesthetist, wretchedly overworked and ministering to eight patients that morning, had given Adams an incorrect dose. As if that were not enough, the operation was being overseen by a trainee doctor who was repeating a year. Adams had suffered a bronchospasm, affecting the flow of oxygen to his brain, and had slipped into a coma.

The reason for the patently inadequate care afforded to the former international footballer was that familiar French pastime, la grève. A strike had denuded the hospital of all but its least experienced clinicians. The trainee doctor later admitted, in court, that he was "not up to the task". It was also conceded that since the majority of the hospital were on strike and it was not a vital operation, it should have been postponed.

Should have.

The doctors told Bernadette that there was little hope of Jean-Pierre ever awakening, but she kept vigil by his side day and night. When the hospital he had been moved to in Chalon could no longer look after him, Bernadette took him home - and devoted the rest of her life to ministering to the man she loved, and who she continued to hope would, by some medical miracle, emerge from his coma.

Custom-building a house to support her husband, she named it the Mas du Bel Athlète Dormant - the House of the Beautiful Sleeping Athlete. The word mas, tellingly, carries a connotation of a country estate rather than a simple house.

Supported financially first by Adams' former clubs Nîmes and PSG, and eventually by the French federation as well, Bernadette was able to eke out an existence (and support her children) while attending to Jean-Pierre. Ultimately, after a painful struggle, a court settlement with the hospital relieved her of any remaining financial worries. She cooked vegetables and mushed them into an edible form, and mastered the art of feeding him. She still spoke to him. She got her sons to watch football matches on TV with him. She continued to hope.

But of all Adams' friends and team-mates of the past, very few visited him. And they all tended to give the same reason: it was just too painful to think of their cheerful, larger-than-life friend of days past in such a pitiful state.

Touchingly, one friend who did visit was one of Adams' very first mentors in his professional days. On the occasion of Jean-Pierre Adams' 70th birthday, Adolf Scherer's visit warmed Bernadette's heart. A hero at the 1962 World Cup, where he helped Czechoslovakia to the final, Scherer had settled in France and was a respected veteran at Nîmes when Adams arrived there in 1970.

Perhaps most touchingly of all, Marius Trésor, Adams' close friend and partner in central defence, who had never been able to bring himself to visit, was reunited with Bernadette in early 2020. Forgetting all her resentment, Jean-Pierre's ministering angel fell into Trésor's arms, the two shared stories, and Trésor promised to visit - soon. But then Covid-19 struck.

Jean-Pierre Adams passed away on September 6, 2021. He deserves to be remembered.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:57 AM 0 comments

With Jean-Pierre Adams in its ranks, the little Nîmes club achieved its best-ever domestic result in the 1971/72 season, finishing second behind Olympique de Marseille. Sure enough, after becoming an international regular as well, Adams was snapped up by the ambitious OGC Nice club in 1973. Right at the beginning of his period with the Côte d'Azur club, he had a hand in its finest hour - eliminating the mighty Barcelona from that season's UEFA Cup.

This was, it must be added, a Barcelona missing its recently-acquired maestro Johan Cruyff, who was still ineligible to play. But it still featured an array of Spanish internationals, plus the Peruvian World Cup star Hugo Sotil. 

Nice won the home leg 3-0. In this game, Adams played as an out-and-out sweeper, which many considered his best position. And it was in many ways a typical Jean-Pierre Adams performance: unfussy, unspectacular, but effective, especially in the air. This time, there was no question of getting forward to support the attack: the opposition was a daunting one, and Adams' job was to close any doors that might open at the back. 

The French side dazzled in the opening minutes. Their Dutch forward Dick van Dijk, who had helped Ajax to the European Cup title in 1971, showed particular verve and invention, and scored the opening goal from a right-wing cross after just four minutes. Subsequently Nice lost their rhythm somewhat, with their centre-forward Marc Molitor missing some good chances. Barcelona were a little unlucky when Sotil's goal just after the hour was ruled out for a probably nonexistent offside. But Molitor had the last laugh, scoring a second goal on the break before heading in a free kick ten minutes from the end.

Adams was now playing in central defence for the national team as well, and his partnership with Marius Trésor, a close friend, was blossoming. After Les Bleus won a friendly away to a Poland side featuring all its 1974 World Cup stars, the new French coach Stefan Kovacs paid particular homage to his garde noire - a phrase that surely requires no translation - of Trésor and Adams. The former's technical excellence and capacity to link up with the midfield was well complemented by the latter's intimidating power in the air and in the tackle. No less a judge than Franz Beckenbauer opined that Trésor and Adams constituted the best central defensive partnership in Europe.

The French thus went into the qualifying series for the 1976 Nations Cup in optimistic mood. Alas, it was to be a wretched campaign; the French failed to win any of their first three group matches, even against little Iceland, and by the time they faced East Germany in a crunch qualifier in Leipzig in October 1975, they had to gain at least a draw to retain even a slight chance of qualifying.

This was Adams' last competitive international. Not that his form gave any cause for dismay; in fact, he was one of France's best players on the day. But injuries punctuated his career to a greater extent after the Nations Cup campaign, and the great subsequent French revival, which he might have played a part in, took place without him.

East Germany were a straightforward, hard-running team who had reached the second phase at the recent World Cup, causing a shock by defeating their western neighbours. But they were without their star attacker, Jurgen Sparwasser, and France had begun to rebuild their team: the young St. Etienne duo of Dominiques, Bathenay and Rocheteau, were cementing their places in the side.

Yet it was another Dominique, goalkeeper Baratelli, who kept the French in the game early on with two smart saves. The French attackers too often ran into dead ends, and did little with the few free kicks they received; Michel Platini was yet to emerge. 

Adams, tackling furiously throughout, did as much as Baratelli to repel the relentless if somewhat predictable German sallies. And early in the second half, on one of his few forays into the attacking half, he provided the impetus for the French goal. A sharp one-two between Adams and the Marseille winger Albert Emon ended with the latter's shot being deflected to Bathenay at the far post, who slotted the ball home.

Hopes rose: an unlikely win, and the chance for progression to the Euro quarter-finals, was in sight. But it wasn't to last. In the penalty-box chaos following an East German corner, the centre-forward Joachim Streich was left unmarked, and scored. Then a completely unnecessary foul by the left-back François Bracci on the lanky Reinhard Häfner presented the Germans with a penalty, which was duly dispatched. France were out.

Adams' club career carried on, his stint with Nice being followed by two years at PSG. But problems with his knee forced a relatively early retirement. In the meantime, he had settled down to a happy family life with his adoring wife Bernadette and his sons Laurent and Frédéric. 

His final club posting at Chalon had seen him combine the roles of player and coach, and he looked forward to more coaching work in the years ahead. To this end, he undertook a coaching course in Dijon. But it was only a few days into this new venture that a new knee injury necessitated a trip to the hospital. The surgeon advised an operation as soon as possible. It was booked in for March 17, 1982.

The dreadful events of that day changed the lives of Adams and all those who loved him. To be concluded in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 3:32 PM 0 comments

Jean-Pierre Adams' first appearance in a France shirt was, ironically enough, against an African XI in Brazil's Taça Independencia of 1972. This bizarre, unwieldy and largely forgotten event was chiefly a propaganda vehicle for Brazil's military dictatorship, and its competitive value was dubious at best. Adams, significantly, came on as a substitute for the man with whom his name was to be associated for years to come - Marius Trésor, the elegant, resourceful defender who played such a major role in French football's resurgence in the late seventies.

Performing well enough to impress the France coach Georges Boulogne in Brazil, Adams kept his place in the side for the more serious business of World Cup qualification. The favourites in their group were the Soviets, finalists in the Nations Cup of 1972 and always a formidable proposition in the lead-up to a World Cup; dead rubbers aside, they had not lost a qualifying match since 1957. And they were France's first opponents, in a home tie in Paris.

For this game, Adams played not in defence, but in central midfield. Boulogne fielded a youthful team in a 4-2-4 formation, with St. Etienne regulars Hervé Revelli and Jean-Michel Larqué in the key attacking roles.

In the first half, France played with fluency but not much penetration; there was almost a hint of deference about their approach. Adams played as he so often did: unspectacularly but well, making the most of his physical power and aerial ability. Although he rarely advanced into the final third, he often posed danger when he did so, once having a very good penalty claim denied after a brisk one-two with Revelli. It was these one-twos around the edge of the area, very much in the style of the great French side of 1958, that constituted France's chief tactic.

At half-time, the commentators were nervous. The Soviets were renowned for their fitness and stamina, and they seemed to have played within themselves up to that point. "I worry about the last 20 minutes," remarked one of the 1958 heroes, Roger Piantoni.

As it happened, it was the final 20 minutes which were the most heartening of all for the French fans. On the hour they went ahead when Larqué touched off a free kick to the left-winger Georges Bereta, who sent a powerful low shot into the Soviet goal. Liberated, the French now attacked with renewed verve; Trésor even executed one of his trademark runs out of defence and shot against the post, while Bereta almost gave a repeat performance eight minutes from the end, this time bringing a fine save out of the Russian keeper Yevhen Rudakov. 

By the end of the game, Revelli, Larqué, Bereta and the young right-winger Serge Chiesa were combining and switching in the best traditions of Fontaine, Kopa and Piantoni. Behind them, Adams and his midfield partner Henri Michel had been quietly effective. It was a significant victory, and French football seemed to be on the upturn.

It was to be a flash in the pan. Taking just one point from their two games against the other team in the group, Ireland, France needed to pull off the unlikely feat of defeating the Russians in Moscow in May 1973 if they were to retain any hope of qualifying. Succumbing to two late goals, they even finished bottom of the group.

But the campaign had cemented the position in the team of the two young defenders, Trésor and Adams, who had received plenty of plaudits. And Adams was soon on the move at club level, where another significant match awaited. To be continued in Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 12:44 PM 0 comments