Etienne – Dynamo Kiev 1976 ": return to a legendary football match

LCP – FRIDAY APRIL 4 AT 2:00 P.M – MAGAZINE

For the hundreds of thousands of football addicts on television, this is a tough time. How to survive without your weekly dose of live matches? For the most affected, the real madmen, the addicts of the round ball, how to support the empty weekend of national championships, the evenings of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday usually devoted to the European cups? Friday evenings without Ligue 2? At the time of confinement without football, even meetings usually not as exciting as an Amiens-Toulouse, a Newcastle-Watford (Premier League), a Wolfsburg-Hoffenheim (Bundesliga), an Eibar-Leganes (Liga) or a Brescia-Sassuolo (Serie A) suddenly takes on the appearance of lost paradise!

In order to avoid too many nervous breakdowns or family murders, certain channels such as L’Equipe TV and beIN Sports have therefore decided to (re) broadcast meetings from the past that have left their mark. French team matches, World Cup finals, European exploits, nostalgia and football have always been a good match, and seeing these sometimes poor quality images offers some good moments.

Among the football events currently on offer, this issue of the excellent magazine Rembob’INA worth the detour. Dedicated to a poster that has become legendary, the quarter-final return of the European Cup of champion clubs between AS Saint-Etienne and Dynamo Kiev played on March 17, 1976, it does not only allow this match played in an atmosphere to be seen again of madness to Geoffroy-Guichard.

Crazy atmosphere

Patrick Cohen, host of the magazine, gathered around him Jean-Michel Larqué, former captain of the Greens, Jacques Vendroux, emblematic sports journalist who covered the epic of the Greens for France Inter, and Richard Poirot, of the INA (National Institute audiovisual). We learn that, at the time, the match had been broadcast by both TF1 and Antenne 2, neither of the two French channels (out of three) having wanted to miss the event! " In the previous round, we had a good wank during the first leg in Split, which was broadcast and where we lost 4-1. Considering that we were no longer likely to qualify, no channel wished to broadcast the return match – that we won 5-1! Facing Kiev, the broadcasters did not want to miss out! ", recalls Larque, sly.

Faced with Dynamo Kiev, one of the best European teams, the Stéphanois lost (2-0) the first leg played in complicated weather conditions in Simferopol, Crimea. On March 17, 1976, a few hours before the return match, Jacques Chancel broadcast his famous program X-ray live from Saint-Etienne. Facing him is coach Robert Herbin, a great lover of classical music. We hear the audio document where, at the end of the program, Chancel asks Herbin: "Tonight I demand three goals against Kiev! "

The rest is anchored in the collective memory. A tense match in an atmosphere of madness, a qualification (3-0) torn in extra time and some lyrical flights of Thierry Roland (" It's a bit Verdun in the Soviet penalty area! ") Supported by Bernard Père (" They had been promised hell, the Soviets. Well, they got it tonight! "). To see and to review, with these Greens molded in swimsuits without advertising, these police officers in kepi playing ball collectors and these advertising panels from another era (Kindy socks to Humanity Sunday).