Raymond Kopa (Raymond Kopaszewski; 13 October 1931 – 3 March 2017) was a professional French football player. He has played for France national team and for Real Madrid.

In 1970 he became the first football player to receive the Légion d'honneur, and in 2004, Pelé named him one of the 125 Greatest Living Footballers at a FIFA Awards Ceremony.

Raymond Kopa

Early life

Kopa was born to a family of Polish immigrants in Nœux-les-Mines, France.

Raymond Kopa

Career

After finishing second in the French national youth football trials in 1949, Kopa began his professional career at the age of 17 with SCO Angers in Ligue 2 and was transferred two years later to Reims, with whom he won French championships in 1953 and 1955.

Raymond Kopa

He won the 1953 Latin Cup with Stade de Reims, where they defeated AC Milan 3–0 in the final, and helped them reach the 1956 European Cup Final, which the team lost to Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid, 4–3.

Kopa was also the first French player to win the European Cup when Madrid defeated Fiorentina 2–0 in the 1957 final. He would go on to be European champion again in 1958 and 1959, the last against former side Stade de Reims, where Just Fontaine played.

In the 1959–60 season, Kopa returned to France to finish his career with Reims, where he won further Championnats in 1960 and 1962. In total, he scored 75 goals in 346 matches in France's top flight, and was given the Ballon d'or by France Football in 1958.

With the France national football team, Kopa scored 18 goals in 45 games between 1952 and 1962. He played in the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden.

Death

Kopa died in Angers, France on 3 March 2017, aged 85.

Club career statistics

|-

|1949/50||rowspan="2"|Angers||rowspan="2"|Division 2||30||7

|-

|1950/51||30||8

|-

|1951/52||rowspan="5"|Stade Reims||rowspan="5"|Division 1||33||8

|-

|1952/53||33||13

|-

|1953/54||31||11

|-

|1954/55||31||11

|-

|1955/56||30||5

|-

|1956/57||rowspan="3"|Real Madrid||rowspan="3"|La Liga||22||6

|-

|1957/58||27||8

|-

|1958/59||30||10

|-

|1959/60||rowspan="8"|Stade Reims||rowspan="5"|Division 1||36||14

|-

|1960/61||30||5

|-

|1961/62||30||2

|-

|1962/63||34||1

|-

|1963/64||25||5

|-

|1964/65||rowspan="2"|Division 2||29||3

|-

|1965/66||27||3

|-

|1966/67||Division 1||33||3

522||114

79||24

601||138

|}

International career statistics

|-

|1952||5||2

|-

|1953||6||3

|-

|1954||6||4

|-

|1955||6||4

|-

|1956||1||0

|-

|1957||0||0

|-

|1958||7||4

|-

|1959||4||0

|-

|1960||3||1

|-

|1961||3||0

|-

|1962||4||0

|-

!Total||45||18

|}

References

Other websites

French Football Federation profile

L'Équipe stats

FootballDatabase profile and stats

European Champions Cup/UEFA Champions League Winning Squads

Interview on uefa.com

1931 births

2017 deaths

Footballers from Pas-de-Calais

Ballon d'Or winners