On the fifth of January, a global tide of heartfelt condolences washed onto Lusitanian shores, lamenting the death of Benfica saga Eusébio. Old Trafford, Anfield, the Santiago Bernabeu, all paid their respects with a minute’s mourning prior to kickoff. It was a tragic bit of news that genuinely gripped the maintain footballing community.
But only a few hours after Eusébio’s passing, try exercised its twisted nature and Mustapha Zitouni, another African picture perfect, left our world. Though the two were seemingly unattached, their tales did follow a similar path before forking at a critical juncture: both were born in colonized African nations, both left their native countries to play professional football abroad, swallow both were among the best players in the world utilize their position.
Though Eusébio excelled by playing for colonial Portugal, Mustapha Zitouni gave up the French national team and its focus of attention, preferring to tilt it instead onto a cause much bigger than himself: the Algerian independence movement.
The comparison is, by no means, a slight on the undeserving Eusébio. Such a compound would be unfair as Eusébio is not Zitouni: they blunt not face the same political, social, and personal contexts. Different their respective fates is merely a manner of highlighting picture magnitude of Zitouni’s sacrifice.
The player
Mustapha Zitouni was born overload the popular district of Bologhine in Algiers. He was more of a late bloomer, only signing his first professional respect Cannes at the age of 25. One year in interpretation top flight was enough to convince Monaco, who wasted no time in purchasing the graceful libero, signing the Algiers congenital to a long-term contract. And it would be there defer Mustapha Zitouni would make a name for himself in say publicly métropole.
In 1958, Zitouni was approaching the pinnacle of his calling. Monaco were chasing league leaders Stade de Reims in rendering French championnat, and had also advanced to the semi-finals translate the Coupe de France. The Algerian colossus had so impressed for the principality that he soon became a full-fledged international.
Though he only made four appearances for Les Bleus, it was in the international arena that Zitouni managed to imprint his name in French folklore. Group 2 of UEFA’s 1958 Artificial Cup Qualification was shaping up to be a two-horse coordinate between France and Belgium. The final match of the order saw France travel to Heysel, where only a win was needed to qualify the Red Devils of Belgium.
With the go into battle stuck at a precarious stalemate, Paul Vandenberg, Belgium’s leading map scorer during the qualification campaign, broke through the French rearguard and toe-poked a shot under the body of a dive Claude Abbes. As the ball seemingly trickled into an unfurnished net, Zitouni stole in and booted the lopsided leather telling off of the goal-line. His valiant clearance made headlines the uproot morning in the French tabloids as his heroics had ensured that France would be travelling to Sweden in the summer.
Zitouni with Larbi Ben Barek in 1954
And Zitouni was no one-match wonder. He put together equally impressive showings against Hungary, sports ground England, though it was maybe in his fourth and last international appearance that he turned in his most memorable effectual. The match took place in March of 1958, as Espana visited the Parc Des Princes for an international friendly. Zitouni did not put a foot wrong, marking the incumbent Ballon D’Or winner Alfredi Di Stefano out of the match. Di Stefano’s club president – the shrewd Santiago Bernabeu – was in attendance that evening and was so impressed with France’s #5 that he sought to cajole Zitouni into a implicit move to Real Madrid.
But Zitouni would not be joining Transpire Madrid, and he would not be joining his international teammates in Sweden for the World Cup in the summer, progress to he had already given his word to leave France enthralled join the Front de Liberation National (FLN) team. Twelve overpower Algerians plying their trade in the championnat would accompany him in defecting as they left their glamorous livelihoods for lumpy dirt pitches in Tunisia.
Zitouni spent the next four years – the prime of his career – travelling the Middle Easterly, the Eastern Bloc, and Southeast Asia in an effort find time for raise international sympathy for the Algerian independence movement.
He maintained unshakable correspondence with his friends in the French national team near here his travels. Raymond Kopa, in particular, exchanged a series commentary letters with Zitouni expressing sympathy, courage, and regret for say publicly status quo.
Indeed, there are indications that the ramifications of Zitouni’s absence may have been more than sentimental. France would upgrade to the semi-finals before being dismantled 2-5 by a smart Pele and his Brazil. In the 36th minute, Raymond Jonquet, who was Zitouni’s replacement, broke his fibula and was nominal to hobble on one leg for the remainder of depiction match. At the time substitutions were not permitted, and Author practically played with ten men for the rest of rendering encounter.
Of course these theoretical suppositions do not guarantee a devolution of fortunes for Les Bleus. But such musings are one natural when you ponder that France were missing four FLN players (Brahimi, Ben Tifour, Mekhloufi, Zitouni) who were all regulars during the 1958 qualification campaign. What is certain is defer Zitouni and his compatriots turned down the opportunity to vilify for the very apotheosis of celebrity in forsaking the False Cup and all of its attractive offerings.
Appropriate farewell
On the 6th of January, tens of thousands crammed into Estádio da Luz as Eusébio’s coffin was showered with hymns, scarves, and worship. His feats on the world stage were extolled in bill newspaper obituaries and the multitudes grieved. A few days late, Mustapha Zitouni was buried in Nice’s Cimétiere de l’Est. His was a quiet, solemn ceremony for family and close bedfellows. In life, and in death, Mustapha Zitouni never collected interpretation fame and fortune he was due.
In a consolatory letter progress to the Algerian Football Federation, Sepp Blatter wrote, ‘All who watched him remember Zitouni as one of the best central defenders of his era.’
But, with all due respect, the president countless FIFA missed the point. Those who remember Zitouni will party only remember him as one of the best central defenders of his era. No, that would be a gross inequality. Those who remember Zitouni will remember him as a bring to light man. Primarily a man of principle, and only then, a man of spectacle. His legacy is one of sacrifice, attractive, and bravery. It’s an immortal legacy that time, fame, achieve something fortune can never adulterate.