By David Owen
April 28 – Robert Herbin, who was a key player in one great Saint-Etienne team and coach of another, has died at the age of 81. Born in Paris, the tactically-astute defensive midfielder played 23 times for France, but it was his exploits with the team in green that came to epitomise French football in the 1960s and 1970s for which he will be remembered.
A cornerstone of the side that won four French titles in a row at the end of the Sixties, Herbin hit still greater heights as a young coach, steering the dynamic and skilful team of Dominique Rocheteau, Christian Lopez and Christian Sarramagna to the 1976 European Cup final, where they famously lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich at Hampden Park.
As much a one-club man as Jackie Milburn at Newcastle United or Valeriy Lobanovskyi, whose talented Dynamo Kiev side he got the better of in a famous European Cup quarter-final, Herbin was nicknamed the ‘Ginger Sphinx’ for his highly distinctive shock of red hair and undemonstrative manner.
Under his leadership, les Verts, from an unpretentious industrial town in France’s unfashionable central region, came to represent French football, in an era when the national team generally underperformed, as completely and unmistakably as les Bleus have in more recent times.
A hard taskmaster in training, the great side that he piloted was renowned for its athleticism and its togetherness. Roared on by the sort of fanatical support for which other old heavy industrial centres such as Bilbao and Dortmund are also noted, and utterly dominant in domestic competition, Herbin’s 1970s Saint-Etienne once strung together an unbeaten home run lasting more than four years.
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