Paris (AFP)

The name of Michel Hidalgo, who died Thursday at 87, will remain forever associated with the first great victory of French football: he was the coach of the band at Platini, triumphant at Euro-1984, two years after the tears of Seville .

The Cyrano of French football won with "panache". Before Aimé Jacquet, world champion in 1998, before Didier Deschamps, winner of the 2018 World Cup, there was Hidalgo, the patriarch, the statue of the Commander.

Unlike the hero of Edmond Rostand, Michel Hidalgo did not have a big nose, but flair. He felt the hatching of the genius Michel Platini and built, in eight years at the head of the Blues between 1976 and 1984, an attractive selection, strong with an identity of offensive play.

He led France to new heights, and even reached the apotheosis during the European Championship, one day in June 1984, at the end of a memorable final against Spain (2-0) in Paris, which crowned the talent of "Platoche" (9 goals in five matches).

After decades of glorious defeats, from the Mondial-1958 (3rd) to the finals of the Lost Champions Cup, by Reims (1956, 1959) or Saint-Étienne (1976), France finally won a major football trophy, and with the way.

But the road has been long, Hidalgo has not always been a winner. The "lose" has long stuck his crampons.

As a player, he lost for example the first final of the Cup of champion clubs, the ancestor of the current Champions League, with the Stade de Reims, against Real Madrid (4-3). The Champenois had however led 2-0 and Hidalgo himself, of the head, had scored the goal of 3-2 at the Parc des Princes.

- The "magic square" -

The son of a Spanish immigrant is also the coach of the sporting tragedy of Seville in 1982, where the Blues lost a World Cup semi-final against Germany, on penalties (3-3 ap, 4-3 in tab), after leading 3-1 during extra time.

That evening, his whole locker room was in tears, "like children," he said. Two years later, it is he who cries, of joy, carried in triumph by his group champion of Europe.

Victory bears the seal of Platini, of course, but also that of Hidalgo, the thinker of the "magic square". "The other teams play with three 6s and a 10, I play with three 10s and a 6", he said with his sense of formula. Alain Giresse, Bernard Genghini and Jean Tigana accompanied Platoche, then Luis Fernandez in place of Genghini.

It took her eight years at the head of the Blues, the longest lease with Deschamps, to reach the top, qualifying her first for the 1978 World Cup, after twelve years of absence from the elite.

As early as 1976, Hidalgo relied on what he did not want to see as "taboo words": "panache and brio", "smiling football", he explained. His mantra: "beauty is compatible with efficiency".

"I was a player, coach then spectator, I always had these ideas. And too bad if I pass for a poet or a nerdy!", He smiled.

- With Tapie at OM -

Before his coaching career, the native of Leffrinckoucke (North), March 22, 1933 (he had a twin brother, Serge), had not been as high in football.

He began his professional career in Le Havre - his father, a metallurgical worker in the blast furnaces, had settled the family in Normandy, in Mondeville, near Caen.

Michel Hidalgo then joined the great Reims (1954-1957), where he was not an indisputable holder, then participated in the rise of AS Monaco, where he won two new titles of champion of France ( 1961, 1963), after that of 1955 with Reims.

He knew only one selection in Blue as player, on May 5, 1962, a defeat in friendly against Italy (2-1).

After his triumph in 1984, Hidalgo has never been higher.

He almost became Minister of Sports for Laurent Fabius in the summer of 1984, then became a full-time National Technical Director (DTN) from 1984 to 1986, after having combined the function with that of coach.

Then he joined Bernard Tapie in the construction of a powerful Olympique de Marseille, in 1986, as general manager, until 1991.

But his legend, he wrote it with the rooster jersey. A final punchline as an epitaph? "A coach who wins, said Michel Hidalgo, is Louis XIV, Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors. When he loses, it's Louis XVI, the guillotine ..."

© 2020 AFP