the s “Nine Algerian footballers (including Zitouni) have disappeared”then titled The Team. In April 1958, Mustapha Zitouni responded favorably to the call of the FLN (the Algerian National Liberation Front) to form the “Independence Eleven”. Objective: to make known to the whole world, via a football team, the war of independence which was waged against the French colonizer. However, at 29 years old, Zitouni is a central defender at the peak of his career, promised to lead the Blues to the 1958 World Cup!
Captain of AS Monaco since 1954 (3rd in the championship in 1956), Mustapha Zitouni made his debut with the French team in 1957 and produced an XXL performance against Spain in March 1958 at the Parc des Princes, muzzling Alfredo Di Stefano! The star player of Real Madrid then asked its president, Santiago Bernabeu, to recruit the native of Algiers! And an offer of 50 million old francs (one million euros) would have been sent.
“He was really a great player. He had a unique class of center back with great ease in the game, superb technique and above all great human qualities. He was a respectable and well-liked man.”tells Michel Hidalgo of Mustapha Zitouni, as written by AS Monaco, which titles a paper “Mustapha Zitouni, between sacrifice and independence” while the player was born on October 19, 1928.
Raymond Kopa thinks of Mustapha Zitouni
Among the players of Algerian origin who left their respective clubs without warning, in the middle of the night, to end up first in Rome or Switzerland, we find Mustapha Zitouni and the young offensive crack of AS Saint-Etienne Rachid Mekhloufi. Only two months before the World Cup held in Sweden… History also records that Raymond Kopa, the star of the Blues, sent a postcard to Mustapha Zitouni during the tournament.
A total of 33 players from French D1 and D2 join the FNL team, which will play friendly matches in North Africa, Europe and even Vietnam and China. Mustapha Zitouni played most of the 58 matches of the “Independence Eleven” and, upon the declaration of independence of Algeria on July 5, 1962, when he was already 34 years old, he resumed his career at RC Kouba, in the local championship, as well as in the Algerian national team.
