Jean Tigana

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Jean Tigana (born 23 June 1955 in Bamako, Mali) has played in midfield and managed professional football extensively throughout France, including 52 appearances and 1 goal for the France national football team during the 1980s.

[edit] Biography

Tigana started his professional career as a player at Toulon, having been spotted fairly late playing part-time while employed in a spaghetti factory and then as a postman. He moved to Lyon in 1978 and then to Bordeaux in a $4M transfer. He was part of the French national football team that won the European Championship in 1984, defeating Spain in the final. In Bordeaux's midfield for eight years, Tigana helped them to three league titles and three French cups, as well as taking them close to European glory on two occasions, losing in the semi-final of the European Cup and Cup Winners' Cup in 1985 and 1987 respectively. Most recently, he took Fulham of London from the Football League First Division to the English Premiership, and later the UEFA Cup (via the Intertoto Cup), but was sacked in March 2003. The club later took him to court, claiming he had wrongly overpaid for certain players such as Steve Marlet, but the charges were dropped.

As an international, he joined Michel Platini, Luis Fernandez and Alain Giresse in what was termed "the Magic Diamond" - one of the great midfield foursomes of all time.

In October 2005, he signed a two and a half year contract with Turkish side Beşiktaş. During that same season, Beşiktaş won their first Turkish Cup in eight years.

[edit] Trivia

Tigana is well-known for his near-addictive consumption of toothpicks when on the bench.

As a manager, he prefers signing younger players and training them to be football stars, rather than signing players who are already stars. While managing AS Monaco FC, he was effective in training Thierry Henry, Ludovic Giuly and David Trezeguet. Similarly, he signed very young and promising players for Beşiktaş J.K., such as Burak Yilmaz, Gokhan Gulec, Fahri Tatan, Matias Delgado and Bobo as well as trying to improve younger players who were already in the squad before he arrived such as Gokhan Zan, Ibrahim Akin and Mehmet Sedef.

Canadian writer Guy Gavriel Kay has admitted [1] that the name of the fictuous province of Tigana in his book of the same name was taken from the name of Jean Tigana.

[edit] External links

• A Profile
• http://www.lequipe.fr/Football/FootballFicheJoueur9660.html
• http://www.fff.fr/servfff/historique/historique.php?cherche_joueur=TIGANA&submit=go

	France squad - 1982 FIFA World Cup Fourth Place
1 Baratelli | 2 Amoros | 3 Battiston | 4 Bossis | 5 Janvion | 6 Lopez | 7 Mahut | 8 Trésor | 9 Genghini | 10 Platini | 11 Girard | 12 Giresse | 13 Larios | 14 Tigana | 15 Bellone | 16 Couriol | 17 Lacombe | 18 Rocheteau | 19 Six | 20 Soler | 21 Castaneda | 22 Ettori | Coach: Hidalgo

	France squad - 1984 European Football Championship (1st Title)
1 Bats | 2 Amoros | 3 Domergue | 4 Bossis | 5 Battiston | 6 Fernández | 7 Ferreri | 8 Bravo | 9 Genghini | 10 Platini | 11 Bellone | 12 Giresse | 13 Six | 14 Tigana | 15 Le Roux | 16 Rocheteau | 17 Lacombe | 18 Tusseau | 19 Bergeroo | 20 Rust | Coach: Hidalgo

	France squad - 1986 FIFA World Cup Third Place
1 Bats | 2 Amoros | 3 Ayache | 4 Battiston | 5 Bibard | 6 Bossis | 7 Le Roux | 8 Tusseau | 9 Fernández | 10 Platini | 11 Ferreri | 12 Giresse | 13 Genghini | 14 Tigana | 15 Vercruysse | 16 Bellone | 17 Papin | 18 Rocheteau | 19 Stopyra | 20 Xuereb | 21 Bergeroo | 22 Rust | Coach: Michel

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