Robert Herbin (30 March 1939 – 27 April 2020) was a French

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

defender and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

. A

one-club man List of one-club men may refer to: * List of one-club men in association football * List of one-club men in rugby league * List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise * List of NBA players who have spent ...

as a player

AS Saint-Étienne Association Sportive de Saint-Étienne Loire (), commonly known as A.S.S.E. () or simply Saint-Étienne, is a professional football club based in Saint-Étienne in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France. The club was founded in 1933 and competes in ...

, he later managed the team for eleven years. He won five

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. A ...

titles as a player and four as a manager, and his team lost the

1976 European Cup Final The 1976 European Cup Final was a football match held at Hampden Park, Glasgow, on 12 May 1976, that saw Bayern Munich of West Germany defeat Saint-Étienne of France 1–0. This was the third consecutive European Cup title for Bayern Munich, ...

FC Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which play ...

Hampden Park Hampden Park (Scottish Gaelic: ''Pàirc Hampden''), often referred to as Hampden, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The -capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. It is the no ...

. Born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, he moved to

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

as a child as his father played trombone at the

Opéra de Nice The Opéra de Nice is the principal opera venue in Nice, France, which houses the Ballet Nice Méditerrannée and the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra. It offers three types of performances: operas, ballets and classical music concerts. History The � ...

. He moved from a local club to Saint-Étienne at age 18, for 2.5 million

French franc The franc (, ; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It w ...

s (around €3,600 in 2020). Herbin was dismissed by Saint-Étienne in February 1983 amidst the

slush fund A slush fund is a fund or account that is not properly accounted, such as money used for corrupt or illegal purposes, especially in the political sphere. Such funds may be kept hidden and maintained separately from money that is used for legitim ...

scandal that ended their period of national dominance. He was instantly hired by their Rhone derby rivals

Olympique Lyonnais Olympique Lyonnais (), commonly referred to as simply Lyon () or OL, is a men and women's French professional football club based in Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The men play in France's highest football division, Ligue 1. Founded in 1950, th ...

and could not prevent their relegation three months later, going on to spend two seasons in

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by Balkrishna Industries, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions ...

with them. After a big-money job with

Al-Nassr FC Al Nassr Football Club ( ar, نادي النصر السعودي; ''An-Nasr, Naṣr'' meaning ''Victory'') is a Saudi Arabian Association football, football club based in Riyadh. Formed in 1955, the club plays its home games at the Mrsool Park. ...

in Saudi Arabia and work with

RC Strasbourg Alsace Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace (commonly known as RC Strasbourg, Racing Straßburg, RCSA, RCS, or simply Strasbourg; Alsatian: ''Füeßbàllmànnschàft Vu Stroßburri'') is a French association football club founded in 1906, based in the c ...

, he returned to Saint-Étienne in 1987 but was unable to restore their success over the next three years. He was recognisable for his large red hair, and for his reserved personality he was known as "Le

Sphinx A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon. In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...

". In retirement, he lived alone with his dog near

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the t ...

and avoided social events, while also suffering from alcohol and tobacco abuse.

References

External links

ProfileProfile on French federation official site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Herbin, Robert 1939 births 2020 deaths Footballers from Paris French footballers France international footballers Association football defenders AS Saint-Étienne players Ligue 1 players 1960 European Nations' Cup players 1966 FIFA World Cup players French football managers AS Saint-Étienne managers Olympique Lyonnais managers RC Strasbourg Alsace managers Red Star F.C. managers Ligue 1 managers Al Nassr FC managers