FLN football squad, the spokespersons of a struggling people

[Pure_Algerian]

On Monday, Algeria celebrates the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of its glorious liberation war with reverent thought for the FLN football squad, who, through matches contested worldwide, contributed greatly to bring the just cause of November 1st Revolution to light.
In the middle of the liberation war, in April 1958 precisely, the National Liberation Front (FLN) urged Algerian professionals playing in Europe, notably France and Switzerland, to rejoin “the soonest possible” Tunisia, the place where they warmed up. This call was answered by many of the football stars of the time, who, one after the other, left for Tunis without attracting the attention of the on-guard French authorities. The first group was made up of Boubekeur, Zitouni, Bentifour, Mekhloufi, Bouchouk, Kermali, followed later by Zouba, Mazouza and Soukhane brothers.

The escape of so many full members of top clubs in France was a huge sensation in political and sporting circles worldwide. It also threw into confusion the managers of French clubs, who lost without any compensation their top players. By accomplishing their national duty, Rachid Mekhloufi (ex-Saint-Etienne) and Mustapha Zitouni (ex-Monaco) for instance sacrificed a huge international career by boycotting the French national team that was to compete in the World Cup in Sweden (1958). Despite being constantly spied on, more than thirty Algerian players rejoined Tunis by all available means.

Overall, some 50 matches were contested in stadiums of sister countries, which brought to light a squad that was every bit as good as other teams of the time. The Doudou’s, Defnoun’s, Bekhloufi’s, Soukhane’s, Kerroum’s, Amara’s, Bouchache brothers and many others filled with wonder the crowds of Belgrade, Prague, Sofia, Budapest, Beijing, Moscow, Baghdad, Casablanca and many other cities in Europe, Asia and the Maghreb. Incredible performances by these football-warriors against Yugoslavia (6-1), Hungary (5-2), Czechoslovakia (4-1), China (4-0), Tunisia (9-0), Jordan (11-0), Iraq (11-0) and Morocco are the living proof of their many exploits. Wherever they played, the FLN squad were welcomed respectfully for such amazing were their performances in packed stadiums.

After the independence, the team continued to play during commemorative festivities, enchanting many youths by unbelievable exhibitions. Nowadays, some have become old, others passed away, but the FLN football squad, who in their very own way contributed to Algeria’s liberation, holds a special place not just in History but in the Algerian people’s heart as well.

FLN line-up: Mustapha Zitouni, Kaddour Bekhloufi, Rachid Mekhloufi, Abderrahmane Boubekeur, Amar Rouai, Abdelhamid Kermali, Mokhtar Aribi, Abdelhamid Bouchouk, Said Brahimi, Abdelaziz Bentifour, El Mokrani Boumezrag, Abdelhamid Zouba, Abderrahmane Ibrir, Abdelkader Mazouza, Hocine Bouchache, Chérif Bouchache, Hedhoud dit Settati, Soukhane Mohamed, Soukhane Abderrahmane, Abdelkrim Kerroum, Mohamed Bouricha, Ali Benfaddah, Oudjani, Mokrane Oualiken, Said Amara, Amar Defnoun, Said Haddad, Mohamed Maouche, Ali Doudou, Hacène Bourtal, Hacène Chabri.

[Al-khiyal]

Samedi 25 Août 2007 -- Mustapha Zitouni, international algérien qui a fait partie de la glorieuse équipe du FLN, est gravement malade. Il souffre dans l’anonymat et l’indifférence à Nice (France) où il vit depuis des années. Son entourage souhaite une aide de l’État algérien pour sa prise en charge. Les responsables concernés sont tenus de renvoyer aujourd’hui la balle à Mustapha Zitouni qui fait partie de ces ambassadeurs qui avaient porté les échos de la Révolution algérienne aux quatre coins de la planète.

Il fait partie de la glorieuse équipe du FLN : Mustapha Zitouni gravement malade

[Al-khiyal]

Lundi 19 Novembre 2007 -- L’écrivain Rachid Boudjedra est en train de mettre la dernière touche à un scénario qui servira à la réalisation d’un film sur la légendaire équipe du FLN. À travers ce film, l’auteur de l’Escargot entêté veut immortaliser l’œuvre des Mekhloufi, Soukhane, Bentifour, Saïd Amara, qui avaient quitté clandestinement leurs clubs respectifs en France pour fonder la glorieuse équipe du FLN, qui a porté, à travers les terrains du monde, la voix de la Révolution algérienne. C’est Rachid Boudjedra qui a fait cette annonce, hier, sur les ondes de la radio où il a également fait un clin d’œil aux jeunes écrivains Mustapha Benfodil et H’mida Ayachi qui sont, selon lui, les porteurs d’espoir de la jeune littérature algérienne.

Contribution de l’équipe de football du FLN à la Révolution :
Un scénario de Rachid Boudjedra pour la mémoire

[Al-khiyal]

TIME Magazine, Monday, April 28, 1958

Under a rainy Riviera sky, the Angers soccer team beat the crack Monaco eleven, 2-0, in a crucial game, but immediately afterwards, Angers' star forward disappeared. Then five of the best Monaco players vanished. All last week reports of missing footballeurs poured in: Lyon lost one player; so did Reims, Saint-Etienne and Nimes; Toulouse lost two.

The vanished players had one thing in common: they were all Algerians. It was as if, overnight, the best Latin American baseball players in the major leagues — men like Chico Carrasquel, Bobby Avila, Minnie Minoso, Ruben Gomez — had fled the U.S. and challenged the Yankees and Braves for the world championship.

When newsmen tracked down the Algerians in Switzerland and Tunisia, they found them hobnobbing with F.L.N. agents, were handed an F.L.N. communiqué stating that the footballeurs refused any longer to help French sport "at the moment when France makes merciless war on their country. They have placed the independence of Algeria above all, giving Algerian youth proof of their courage and disinterestedness." A "Free Algerian" team would now be formed to barnstorm through the Middle East, said F.L.N.

The players did not seem especially heroic. Mustapha Zitouni, who had been scheduled to play for France in an international match against Switzerland, said glumly in Tunis: "I have many friends in France, but the problem is bigger than us. What do you do if your country is at war and you get called up?"

To millions of French soccer fans it was the saddest blow of the Algerian rebellion. Favorite teams were badly crippled, and club owners put a trade value of $250,000 on the missing players. The players had not been treated meanly as Algerians; they were good friends of the other players, and were regarded as sports celebrities; most had French wives or girl friends.

Like all Algerians working in France, the footballeurs had been regularly visited by F.L.N. collectors who took a 15% bite of their salaries and bonuses to support the rebellion. But no one had imagined that the F.L.N. was powerful enough to make the players throw up good jobs, abandon their homes, and give up such sideline business as bars and bistros. The flight may not have been pure patriotism, but it was far from kidnapping. The exodus, with its complicated movement of wives and children, luggage and refrigerators and washing machines, was elaborately planned over a long period of time to avert suspicion, and not a single player appealed to the police for protection.

The disappearing act

[Al-khiyal]

Contribution de l’équipe de football du FLN à la Révolution :
Un scénario de Rachid Boudjedra pour la mémoire

Mercredi 21 Novembre 2007 -- Notre Radar, dans lequel nous rapportions dimanche dernier que notre grand écrivain Rachid Boudjedra est sur le point de finaliser un scénario sur la glorieuse équipe du FLN, nous a valu quelques précisions de la part de M. Zighem Boualem d’El-Harrach. Après avoir exprimé sa considération aussi bien pour les footballeurs de l’équipe du FLN que pour Boudjedra, “dont les intentions sont louables”, M. Zighem s’étonne que “pas une seule fois les membres de l’équipe du FLN n’ont voulu évoquer les souvenirs de leurs illustres prédécesseurs, deux du glorieux “11” de l’ALN”. Selon M. Zighem, “cette équipe, qui sera la première à porter haut l’emblème national à travers l’ensemble du monde arabo-musulman, a été créée le 13 mai 1957, à Tunis, précisément à la base Didouche. C’est-à-dire au moment où l’écrasante majorité de la future équipe du FLN jouait encore en France. Selon M. Zighem, “cette glorieuse équipe compte à son palmarès plus de 42 victoires et à son retour, elle ramena 12 milliards de centimes destinés à la lutte de Libération nationale”. Parmi les joueurs qui composaient cette équipe, Saci Zighem, fondateur du CCC, ancêtre de l’actuel NAHD, Omar Djebrani, Rebih, Chenini, Moussaoui, Doudou Zerar.

Football et Révolution algérienne : Le glorieux “11” de l’ALN était le pionnier

[Al-khiyal]

Dimanche 25 Novembre 2007 -- Un timbre sera très prochainement émis et exclusivement dédié à la glorieuse équipe de football du FLN. Ce timbre, le premier du genre, sera commercialisé en 2008 sur le marché algérien au grand bonheur des philatélistes. À ce propos, et pour l’histoire, il faut signaler que le premier timbre émis en Algérie est estimé actuellement à 400 000 euros.

Philatélie en Algérie : Émission d’un timbre de l’équipe du FLN en 2008

[Al-khiyal]

Mekhloufi:
Our Algerian message

March 18, 2008 -- Rachid Mekhloufi, the Algerian footballing legend from the 1950s and 60s, was in Zurich on Monday 17 March to visit the FIFA offices and meet President Blatter. During a distinguished career, Mekhloufi scored and also set up a hatful of goals, particularly for legendary French club Saint Etienne. He was also involved in the FLN (Algerian National Liberation Front) team which did much to further the cause of the country's independence in its own unique way, and which will be celebrating its 50 th anniversary in Algiers on 12 April.

FIFA.com met this wonderful character who told the emotional tale of his time with the FLN team, his first visit to France and of course the 1982 FIFA World Cup™, when he was part of Algeria's coaching staff.

FIFA.com: Rachid, what brings you to the Home of FIFA?

Rachid Mekhloufi: I've come to discuss the 50th anniversary of the founding of the FLN team which will be celebrated on 12 April in Algiers. A year ago, we set up an association of former FLN players, and we are the ones organising the celebrations. I wanted to invite President Blatter to attend, but unfortunately he is a very busy man and he won't be able to come to Algeria. However, I was very flattered that he gave me some of his valuable time here in Zurich.

Tell us about this FLN team?

From 1954 to 1958 we had the Algerian war of independence. In 1958, the National Liberation Front (FLN), which was behind the revolution in Algeria, decided to send away 10 of our country's most famous French-based footballers. The idea was to wake the French up to what was going on in our country, since no-one seemed to know what was really happening. It was a piece of marketing genius by the FLN, as suddenly the French were wondering where these 10 players had gone and why they had disappeared. This 'exodus' showed the French people that there really was a war going on in Algeria, that we were Algerians first and foremost and that we wanted to get our message out to the whole world.

And you were playing all around the world?

We went on tour for a month or two and played a lot of matches. We went to eastern Europe, to the Arab countries then Asia, China, Vietnam. I remember in Vietnam, we met Ho Chi Minh who invited us for breakfast at 7 o'clock in the morning. In total, we must have played around 100 matches.

Which one of those matches stands out the most?

I'll never forget the match in Belgrade. We played against the Yugoslavian national team during Tito's time in power, but ours was just an extra match after the main event, which was between a Brazilian XI and a Yugoslav team. The fans were already leaving the stadium when we started playing, and we really started putting on a show. We put six past the Yugoslavs and played some amazing football. Word got around and people started running back into the stands. That was quite something.

What first brought you to France?

Well we obviously didn't have agents at the time, but a journalist in the little town where I lived spotted me and wrote to his brother in Saint Etienne to tell him what he'd 'discovered'. He then told the Saint Etienne club, who sent me a plane ticket, and by 4 August 1954, I was one of Les Verts.

You were a very talented forward. Which did you prefer, scoring goals or setting them up?

My career was in two parts - before and after the FLN. From 1954 - 1958, I was an out-and-out goalscorer. I used to like to run onto passes and score, and I certainly bagged more than my fair share. After 1962, I came back to Saint Etienne but more as a playmaker, so to speak. Robert Herbin, who played alongside me at the time, paid me a real tribute when he said, 'Rachid's passes are so good, even the guy who locks up the stadium at night could score from them.'

After a fine career as a player, you went on to coach the Algerian national team. What was that like?

I took charge in 1975 and sent my friends from the FLN team all around the country to help me put together the strongest squad possible. We won the Mediterranean Games despite having a team of unknowns. I remember when I announced my squad, the press thought I was mad. I was back again in 1982, when we had a really talented team, but we let that historic victory over West Germany go to our heads, which was a real waste.