Thierry José Roland (; 4 August 1937 – 16 June 2012) was a French

sports commentator In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

who was France's leading football commentator for 59 years. He began his career as a radio journalist for the ORTF when he was just 16 years old. Roland then became a television sports journalist at age 20. He commentated on more than 1,000 football matches, including thirteen World Cups (beginning with the

1962 FIFA World Cup The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the seventh edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held from 30 May to 17 June 1962 in Chile. The qualification rounds took place ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

) and nine

UEFA European Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations ( UEFA). The competition is conte ...

s. He was nicknamed ''La voix du football'' ("The voice of football"). Roland was born in

Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious commune in the Parisian area, located from its centre. It is a subprefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and t ...

, a suburban city just southwest of Paris. He died in the

15th arrondissement of Paris 15 (fifteen) is the natural number following 14 and preceding 16. Mathematics 15 is: * A composite number, and the sixth semiprime; its proper divisors being , and . * A deficient number, a smooth number, a lucky number, a pernicious num ...

of a cerebrovascular event at age 74.

Bibliography

* ''La légende de la coupe du monde'', Minerva, 1998 * ''La Fabuleuse histoire de la Coupe du monde'', Minerva, October 2002 * ''Mes 100 plus grands matchs'', Larousse, October 2005 * ''Mes 100 plus grands joueurs'', Larousse, May 2006 * ''100 % Bleus'', Solar, 2008 * ''Mes 13 coupes du monde'', Edition du Rocher, April 2010 * ''Mes plus grands moments de football'', Larousse, May 2012

Commentator style

Some of Thierry Roland's expressions in his comments of matches, such as: "These two will not spend their holidays together", "Broke like a rabbit in full flight", "He swallowed the trumpet", "The balloon is went in the zig and he went in the zag "," He did not make the trip for nothing "or" This is not the right line of Longchamp ", contributed to his popularity. But, he was also very criticized for his frankness, for his insults towards the referee ("Mr. Foote, you are a bastard !") or about a Romanian referee "I've never seen such a manure! Michel Hidalgo told me yesterday that Romanians were the easiest to buy ", its sexism and some expressions with racist connotation or simply abusive. Thus, commenting on the final of the 1966 Coupe de France for the ORTF, he explained after the victory of RC Strasbourg that "the Cup left France". His particular style earned him a recurring caricature of the humorous show ''

Les Guignols de l'info ''Les Guignols'' (, ''The Puppets''), formerly ''Les Guignols de l'info'' (, ''The News Puppets''), was a daily satirical latex puppet show broadcast on the French television channel Canal+. It was created in 1988, inspired by '' Le Bébête Sho ...

''.

Tribute

Following the death of Thierry Roland, a minute of silence was observed in his honor during the France-Sweden

UEFA Euro 2012 The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 ...

match in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...

. On February 6, 2013, the press gallery of the

Stade de France The Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the sixth-largest stadium in Europe. The stadium is used by the France national foo ...

was renamed to its name, during the France-Germany friendly match.« Une tribune Thierry-Roland au SDF »
''

L'Équipe ''L'Équipe'' (, French for "the team") is a French nationwide daily newspaper devoted to sport, owned by Éditions Philippe Amaury. The paper is noted for coverage of association football, rugby, motorsport, and cycling. Its predecessor ...

.fr'', 7 novembre 2012.

References

1937 births 2012 deaths Deaths in Paris Lycée Janson-de-Sailly alumni Deaths from cerebrovascular disease Burials at Passy Cemetery French sports journalists French television personalities People from Boulogne-Billancourt French people of Russian descent Association football commentators French male non-fiction writers {{France-journalist-stub