Paris (AFP)
Goalkeeper Dominique Colonna, the dean of French international players and Reims’ goalkeeper during his golden era in Europe, died at the age of 95.
After the death of top scorer Just Fontaine last March at the age of 89, Colonna became one of the last three surviving players from the French national team that finished third in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, along with Robert Moinet (93 years old) and Bernard Chiarelli (89 years old).
Colonna played 13 international matches with the “Roosters” national team between 1957 and 1961, but he did not play in the World Cup in Sweden, because he was not a starter.
Despite his short stature (1.72 metres), he succeeded in defending Reigns, who imposed himself on the European scene at the end of the 1950s, and played 206 matches with him.
The current president of Nice, Jean-Pierre Caillaux, said: “He made up for his lack of stature with extraordinary reflexes and leaps, and in this sense, he inspired a whole generation of goalkeepers.”
In 1959, Colonna participated in the second final in the history of Reims in the European Champion Clubs Cup (currently the European Champions League), and succeeded in saving a penalty kick taken by the Spaniard Enrique Mateus, before his team lost 2-0 with goals by Mateus himself and Alfredo Di Stefano.
In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Le Tune in 2020, he said: “I saved the penalty kick, and I went to see Di Stefano at halftime to tell him in Spanish: You will not score, but in the end he was able to score.”
Colonna was born in 1928 and grew up in Corti in Corsica. He played for Montpellier (1948-1949), before joining Stade Français (1949-1955), then Nice (1955-1957), with whom he won the league title in 1956, to return. He played with Reims for six seasons between 1957 and 1963, and won the league title three times with him (1958, 1960 and 1962), including the league-cup double in 1958.
After his retirement, in 1963, Colonna became the first coach of Cameroon, 3 years after it gained independence.
2023-09-13 06:34:55
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