Patrick Battiston had only been on the field seven minutes when he fell victim to what is widely recognised as the worst unpunished challenge in the history of the game.
Chasing onto a through pass from Michel Platini in the semi-final of the 1982 World Cup, the Saint-Etienne defender had the opportunity to put France 2-1 up on Germany. Instead, he was left quite literally in a heap by goalkeeper Harald Schumacher.
The goalkeeper had charged full blooded out of his box and quite literally thrown himself hip and forearm first at the unfortunate opponent. The German had got nowhere near the ball but had made a perfect connection with the Frenchman, who was left unconscious for half an hour, with a cracked vertebra, three broken ribs, and minus two teeth following the incident. He would later fall into a coma.
It was as if he had been in a car crash.
Dutch referee Charles Corver awarded a goal kick.
“We were saying: ‘Shit! Are they only going to tell us he’s dead at the end of the match,” Saint-Etienne and France colleague Gerard Janvion later said.
There was a very real fear for the health of the player, who had to wait an incredible three minutes for treatment as the Seville police banned the Red Cross from entering the field. When eventually he was carried off seven minutes after the collision, he was utterly inanimate, arm hanging limply off the side of the stretcher.
Little wonder, then, Platini, who had gone across and kissed his friend’s hand, was another who thought his team-mate had died. “He had no pulse and he looked pale,” the great playmaker remembered.
Incredibly, Schumacher was not punished for what was closer to an assault than a tackle.
Corver later told France Football: “My eyes followed the trajectory of the ball. My linesman was doing the same as me. Yes, there was a collision, but I didn’t see anything. I’m truly sorry for the French fans.”
An already inflammatory situation was not helped by the goalkeeper’s cold-blooded response to his critics.
“If that's all that's wrong with him, I'll pay him the crowns,” he said after hearing of the player’s injuries. Indeed, he would only visit Battiston in hospital under duress.
The keeper felt he had been ambushed by the press after the game and put his response down to “autogenic training”, something he now seems to regret.
“I had never felt so much hatred before. It sounded like I was going to trigger the next war,” he admitted to Suddeutsche Zeitung in 2012.
Nevertheless, his challenge stands out as the defining moment of what was otherwise one of the all-time great semi-finals.
The sides played out a 1-1 draw after 90 minutes, but it was in extra-time the match really came to life. France raced into a 3-1 advantage. Marius Tresor was the scorer of Les Bleus’ third – a moment with profound consequences for the game in the country.
“I told myself: ‘So, this is what football can do? That’s not bad,” one Thierry Henry, who was not even five at the time, told L’Equipe. “Tresor’s volley was special because he was Antillean like me. Everyone jumped up and down, was on the tables or was rolling on the ground. But I watched the giant screen and the joy of Marius with his two arms in the air.
“I think that’s when my passion for the game was born.”
A spark might have been created for one of the nation’s great strikers that day, but on the field France’s joy was quickly snuffed out. They were pegged back either side of the interval before losing out 5-4 on penalties – the first time a World Cup semi-final has been decided in such a manner.
Nevertheless, Battiston’s injuries and the overall refereeing of the game left the French furious.
Tresor described scoring as “the worst moment in my career… Rather than score in extra-time, I would have preferred that Battiston did it before me when he was standing in front of Schumacher.”
Platini branded the outcome “scandalous”, pointing out he felt there had been two fouls before Karl-Heinze Rummenigge struck to make it 3-2, giving the Germans a route back into the match.
Usually measured coach Michel Hidalgo was furious: “We have been eliminated brutally. I would say scientifically.”
Battiston, though, is ultimately the player who still bears the battlemarks. “To this day I have a cracked vertebra and broken teeth,” he said in 2016, though he has refused to be too harsh on his foe.
“Maybe he did feel guilty, one can draw all sorts of conclusions as to what he did feel. All I know is that Schumacher was someone who wanted to win at all costs and he went way over the top that evening.
“Entrenched in our memories is this charge by Schumacher who flattened the little Frenchman. That’s how things are. People talk to me about 1982 often. But it wasn’t only about me.”
Indeed, it wasn’t only about Battiston. It was about a nation’s footballing dreams, and Gerard Houllier, who would later endure an ill-fated spell in charge of France, believes the incident did the nation much good in the longer term.
“Everyone thought they were a victim of something and in France we like victims and we got together,” he said. “People started loving football in France from that time.”
Two years later, France won their first major international prize, defeating Spain in the Euro 84 final. Playing right-back for Les Bleus that evening in Paris, was Battiston, cracked vertebra and all.
