“Stéphanois tears flow. A great man, an immense footballer is gone. Rachid Mekhloufi is no more, but his legacy will never leave us ». AS Saint-Etienne announced with emotion the disappearance of one of its legends: Rachid Mekhloufi died Friday at the age of 88. The Algerian striker played from 1954 to 1958 and from 1962 to 1968 for the Greens, being champion of France in 1957, 1964, 1967 and 1968. He still remains the second top scorer in the club’s history with 152 goals 339 matches.
Rachid Mekhloufi’s career is legendary since he was one of the thirty players in the French championship from Algeria, then a French colony, who accepted the call of the Algerian FNL (National Liberation Front) in order to form an emblematic national selection. This “independence eleven” faced Morocco and Tunisia and went to play in the Middle East, Asia (China and Vietnam) and Eastern Europe to publicize the war of independence led by the people Algerian against the French occupier (for more than a century).
The Blues 3rd in the World Cup!
The story goes that Mekhloufi, 22 years old at the time, made the decision to flee France in secret (via Switzerland with Lyon players) while giving up on the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. The young star of ASSE remained on seasons with 21 and 25 goals, to offer the very first championship title in the history of the Greens in 1957. He thus played four matches with the Blues of Albert Batteux and was to form the fiery offensive duo of the France team with Raymond Kopa (already at Real Madrid) during the World Cup.
Thanks to the talent of Kopa (voted best player of the tournament then Ballon d’Or 58) and the 13 goals of Just Fontaine, France reached the semi-finals to take a 5-2 victory over Pélé’s Brazil. The Blues then snatched 3rd place ahead of West Germany (6-3). The French internationals had also sent a postcard to Mustapha Zitouni, their former defensive rock who had also decided to leave France for the FLN team. Golazo, the Sports.fr podcast, recounts in one of its episodes the magnificent adventure of these Algerian players.
