The 81-year-old "le Sphinx" led the Greens to the European Cup final in 1976 and marked French football in the 1970s.
This May 13, 1976, France celebrates its glorious losers. At the initiative of France Inter journalist Jacques Vendroux, a procession of green R5 (convertibles) descends the Champs-Elysées. With his red hair helmet, Robert Herbin is impossible to miss, even in the midst of a crowd of 100,000 people.
The coach of AS Saint-Etienne signs a few autographs, but the heart is not there. "I felt like I was somewhere else. At the Elysee, I don't even remember what the president told us. Who was it at the time? Giscard? », He will tell many years later.
He had never seen this match the day before, this European Cup final of the champion clubs lost against Bayern Munich (0-1) in Glasgow. What's the point ? The posts in Hampden Park will always be square and realism will always be German.
Aged 81, Robert Herbin died on Monday April 27 in Saint-Etienne. He suffered from heart and lung problems and lived alone in his house in L’Etrat (Loire), where this Wagner lover listened to classical music with the sole company of his dog. Without news of him, his sister had alerted the gendarmerie which had discovered, on April 21, the one who was nicknamed "the Sphinx" dehydrated and unable to move.
Under his orders, the Greens were indeed "the strongest" in the 1970s. In the romanticism of defeat, Herbin would prefer that we retain the victories, his four championships won and his three Coupe de France in eleven years spent on the bench Stéphane, between 1972 and 1983. If he subsequently trained the Red Star and Strasbourg, or even in Saudi Arabia and even the Lyon enemy, between 1983 and 1985, he remains the man of a club, d 'a city: Saint-Etienne
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