Jean-Pierre Papin

Jean-Pierre Papin - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Jean-Pierre Papin

Jean-Pierre Roger Guillaume Papin (born 5 November 1963) is a French football manager and former professional player who played as a forward. He was most recently the head coach of the reserve team of Olympique de Marseille. He won the Ballon d'Or in 1991.

This profile of Jean-Pierre Papin covers Early Life and Family Background, Valenciennes, Brugge, Marseille and AC Milan.

Papin was included in the FIFA 100, a list of the greatest living footballers, published in 2004 for the centenary of the FIFA, signed by Pelé. He was named one of the best European footballers on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the UEFA in 2004. He is famous in particular for his first-time strikes from distance, his overhead kicks, and his volleys, which are known as Papinades. The nickname of JPP was given to him by supporters and journalists.

Trained at Jeumont, Papin signed his first professional contract in 1984 at Valenciennes. Recruited by Brugge, he won the Belgian Cup and went on to be selected for the French team for the 1986 FIFA World Cup. Signed by Marseille, he experienced the pinnacle of his career as he won Ligue 1 titles with Marseille in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992; the Coupe de France in 1989; and reached the final of the UEFA Champions League in 1991. In 1992, he left Olympique de Marseille for AC Milan in a record transfer; he won Serie A in 1994 and the UEFA Champions League. He joined Bayern Munich, where he won the UEFA Cup in 1996. He returned to France, to Bordeaux, where he was a finalist in the Coupe de la Ligue in 1997 and 1998 and then ended his professional career at Guingamp.

Capped 54 times, and captained 11 times, Papin played in the French team which reached the 1986 World Cup semifinal. France failed to qualify for either the 1988 European Championships or the 1990 World Cup but he was part of the team for the Euro 1992. Injuries and the emergence of the Zinedine Zidane generation saw his international career come to an end in the mid-1990s.

In 1996, after their eight-month-old daughter was shown to have serious cerebral lesions, Jean-Pierre and his wife set up an association "Neuf de Coeur" (Nine of Hearts; Papin's shirt number was 9) to help others in that situation and, particularly, to find and apply methods to mentally and physically educate such children.

Early Life and Family Background of Jean-Pierre Papin

Jean-Pierre Roger Guillaume Papin was born on 5 November 1963 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, the son of professional footballer Guy Papin. After his parents divorced, he moved to live with his grandmother in Germont, a French city located near the Belgian border.

Valenciennes of Jean-Pierre Papin

At age 15, Papin started his professional career with Valenciennes, in Northern France, before moving to Club Brugge in Belgium.

Brugge

Papin had a successful season at Club Brugge, scoring 32 goals in 43 games. Although he only played one season for Club Brugge, he was elected as its greatest ever foreign player by the supporters in 2008.

Marseille

During Papin's time at Marseille, the club won four consecutive French league championships between 1989 and 1992, completed a league and cup double in 1989, and reached the final of the European Cup in 1991, losing to Red Star Belgrade on penalties.

During this period, Papin scored 181 goals in 279 games and was the league's top scorer for five consecutive seasons (from 1988 to 1992). While at Marseille he won the Ballon d'Or, awarded to Europe's top footballer, in 1991.

AC Milan

In July 1992, Papin joined Italian giants AC Milan for a world record fee of £10 million, and was the first high-profile French player to join the Italian league since Michel Platini. But he never established himself as a regular first team member with the rossoneri due to injuries and adaptation problems. As a foreign player in the Pre-Bosman rule era, Papin also suffered from the three-foreigner rule that made him compete for playing time with other foreign players.

He entered as a substitute during the 1993 Champions League final in which Milan lost to his former club, Marseille. He won the Champions League in the next year, but did not play in the final. Nevertheless, Papin has kept good memories of his spell in Italy and frequently cites former Milan managers Fabio Capello and Arrigo Sacchi as his models when coaching is concerned.

Bayern Munich

In 1994, he was transferred to Bayern Munich for £2.1 million, but his first season was once again plagued by injuries. In his second season in Germany he was part of the side that won the UEFA Cup against Bordeaux, a club that Papin would join the following season. He was twice linked with clubs in England later in his playing career. First, in March 1994, he was a transfer target for Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur. Towards the end of his spell with Bordeaux in 1998, he was a target for ambitious Fulham, then a Division Two (third tier) side, and even expressed his desire to sign for the club. But neither transfer ever happened and Papin finished his career without having spent any time in England.

Bordeaux

With Bordeaux, he lost the 1997 Coupe de la Ligue final against Strasbourg and lost the 1998 Coupe de la Ligue final.

Career and Rise to Fame

Papin finished his career as a player in the amateur club US Cap-Ferret between 2001 and 2004. Then, after five years of managing, he played in another amateur club, AS Facture-Biganos Boïen.

International Career

Papin was selected for the first time in the French team during the Toulon Tournament in 1985 in Marseille with the number 14, alongside Pascal Baills, Stéphane Paille, Gérald Passi, Franck Sauzée, Vincent Cobos and Jean-Christophe Thomas. The France team won the Toulon Tournament and successively defeated Spain (Jon Andoni Goikoetxea), Romania (Gheorghe Popescu), Ivory Coast (Joël Tiéhi) and England (Martin Allen). Papin finished as the tournament's top scorer and it was during the match against Spain that Papin scored his first official goal at the Stade Vélodrome.

Papin earned his first cap in a friendly match against Northern Ireland in February 1986 and appeared at the 1986 World Cup. He scored twice in four games: first during France opening game against Canada (1–0) and then during France's victory against Belgium (4–2), helping France finish third.

He did not appear at the 1990 World Cup because France failed to qualify, but during the qualifying campaign for UEFA Euro 1992 he finished second top scorer in the Qualifiers of the 1992 European Football Championship with nine goals behind Darko Pančev and the France team is the only one to win all its playoff matches, a first in Europe and this in a strong group with two quarter-finalists of the previous World Cup, Spain and Czechoslovakia. Papin who suffers from the aftermath of an ankle injury cannot prevent France from failing in the first round, despite scoring two goals in three games

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Papin), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.