Roger Courtois

1932/33 Urania Genève Sport (SUI) 15 matches, 17 goals

(Swiss Championship: 12 matches, 10 goals)

(Swiss Cup: 3 matches, 7 goals)

1933/40 FC Sochaux (FRA) 174 matches, 184 goals

(French Championship: 147 matches, 151 goals)

(French Cup: 27 matches, 33 goals)

1941/45 Lausanne-Sports (SUI) 103 matches, 50 goals

(Swiss Championship: 91 matches, 38 goals)

(Swiss Cup: 12 matches, 12 goals)

1945/52 FC Sochaux (FRA) 195 matches, 97 goals

(French Championship: 177 matches, 86 goals)

(Coupe de France: 18 matches, 11 goals)

1952/58 AS Troyes Sainte-Savine (FRA) 16 matches, 6 goals

(Championnat de France: 15 matches, 4 goals)

(Coupe de France: 1 match, 2 goals)

With the National Team :

22 caps, 10 goals

(Friendly matches: 22 caps, 10 goals)

1st cap: December 6, 1933 against England (1-4)

Last cap: March 23, 1947 against Portugal (1-0)

Roger Courtois

Born on May 30, 1912 in Geneva (SWI)

Died on May 5, 1972 in Geneva (SWI)

French/Swiss, Left-winger, Striker, 1m60

Nickname: "Dum Dum"

Roger Courtois was born on May 30, 1912 in Geneva, Switzerland. His professional career began in 1932. He had a good first season at Urania Sport in Geneva, Switzerland, and during the summer of 1933, he would experience an event that would change his career forever. The president of FC Sochaux at the time, Jean-Pierre Peugeot, had the goal of creating a French dream team to win the French championship. Looking for a great striker, the club's leaders attended the Racing Club de Paris - Urania Sport de Genève match in Paris, Roger Courtois would have a good match and deliver an assist.

Roger Courtois was approached by the Sochaux leaders who recruited the player. Measuring 1m60, the player will play on the left wing, as a winger before gradually taking the place of striker. Courtois will very quickly establish himself as one of the best players in the French championship thanks to his incredible ability to stack goals season after season.

Franco-Swiss, he joined the French national team in December 1933, which saw him as an excellent striker. He then played left winger for the French nation. For his first season, he scored 20 goals in 23 matches, let's remember, in the left winger position!

With him, Sochaux somehow managed to stay in the French first division, finishing 12th in the championship, 5 points ahead of Nice, relegated. This period, between 1933 and 1936, was a magical time for the player. Since he participated in 102 matches and scored 111 goals, all, always as a left winger.

He won the 1934/35 championship and during the 1935/36 season, he had a magnificent season with 49 goals in 40 matches in all competitions, incredible statistics that place the Franco-Swiss player as one of the most talented of his generation.

In the French group that went to the 1934 World Cup (he did not play a single minute during the competition), he became a star of the national selection for which he had a great career between 1933 and 1947 with a total of 22 matches for 10 goals.

Successively winning the 1937 Coupe de France and again the French championship in 1938, he is among the best players in the history of the championship. Despite everything, he suffered from pleurisy during his adolescence which handicapped him in his career, causing him many kidney problems, he will notably forfeit for the 1938 World Cup while he would have been one of the greatest players present during this tournament.

With the Second World War which canceled the 2 World Cups of 1942 and 1946, the best French striker of his generation will never have been able to participate in a World Cup match, a tragic fate.

Let's continue on this period of the Second World War since in the summer of 1939, the French striker is approached by CA Peñarol, one of the greatest clubs in history to join their team. Loyal to FC Sochaux, Courtois refuses and sees his destiny completely change 2 months later.

The Second World War breaks out and the player is mobilized in the French army. Suffering from the French debacle, he was taken prisoner very shortly after the start of the conflict and was sent to the Dresden region in Germany. There, the detention conditions were precarious but correct, the prisoners were notably authorized to build a sports field where Courtois could play football in front of up to 15,000 people. He also met Lucien Gamblin, a former French international.

His detention lasted a year, then he returned to Switzerland where he played for Lausanne Sports between 1941 and 1945. Then his love for FC Sochaux made him return to France where he played again for his favorite club. His statistics are crazy, 14 years at the club, 369 matches played for 281 goals. That's 324 French championship matches for 237 goals and 45 French Cup matches for 44 goals with Sochaux.

He finally left the club again in 1952 when he was already 40 years old. Courtois was also called up to the French B team in 1950, at 38 years old! He then joined AS Troyes-Savinienne as a coach but continued to play matches until the 1957/58 season in the French second division. He scored his last goal in 1956, at 44 years and 4 days old, a record in French football!

- In 2022, So Foot magazine ranked him in the top 1000 best players in the French championship, in 7th place

- 3rd best French scorer in history in all competitions (364 goals)

- Top scorer in the French Championship in 1936 (34 goals) and 1939 (27 goals) (FC Sochaux)

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