An unnatural marriage that did not last very long. The double Golden Ball and world champion at the head of Germany in 1990, Franz Beckenbauer, who died this Monday at the age of 78, was the short-lived coach of OM during the 1990-1991 season , after a very personal intuition from Bernard Tapie.
After the failure of the signing of Maradona, the Olympian president wanted to strike a big blow to bring his club a little closer to the big leagues. And it was through the purchase of Adidas in the summer of 1990 that the “Boss” managed to reach his new trainer, the most prestigious of the time.
“A humility that left you on your ass”
Franz Beckenbauer then arrived in Marseille on September 6, 1990 when Gérard Gili had already managed nine matches, for seven wins and two draws and he was coming off a championship title and the famous C1 semi-final lost on his hand. of Vata. “We couldn’t be two coaches and it was time for me to give up,” recalls the former goalkeeper, a fine player, to 20 minutes. When he joined France, the German was considered a rock star to the point of being invited to the France 2 news. “We see Tapie on the front page of the newspapers with Beckenbauer. Beckenbauer was like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones! “, will tell SoFoot Basil Boli.
Despite undeniable human qualities, “someone completely charming, very available and attentive to the problems of others” for Gérard Gili, “a lord, with a capital S, he put everyone on the same footing of equality, with a simplicity and humility that left you on your ass”, according to the replacement goalkeeper at the time, Alain Casanova, the mayonnaise does not take for several reasons.
“I asked him to accept my resignation”
The lack of professionalism of the club, first of all: “there were a lot of shortcomings. We had no training center, no field, we had to take the bus every day to go to training. We undressed at the Vélodrome and went to train. We were far from the German requirements and rigor that Franz Beckenbauer could have,” recalls Casanova. Because of the language barrier, too, Jean-Pierre Papin even playing the translator between the coach and Pascal Olmeta, the goalkeeper at the time. And the omnipresence of Bernard Tapie, “the Kaiser” often complained about tactical instructions dictated by his president.
But also because of the Marseille context, already. “A swamp” as the main person mentioned in an interview given to the Team : “Tapie made eyes at me by succeeding in seducing me. Then very quickly, several cases made the headlines in the French media with Tapie involved in several scandals. In December 1990, I asked him to accept my resignation, but he again ended up persuading me to continue until the end of the season. » Not as a coach, but in the form of a sporting director. “It’s true that he didn’t stay long, but he still took this position of sports director as a courtesy,” recalls Gérard Gili, who keeps the memory of a “football icon”. Alain Casanova will remain “marked for life” by this “gentleman”.