Dominique Rocheteau

Lore & Background

Born in Saintes, Charente-Maritime, Rocheteau began his professional career with AS Saint-Étienne, when they were the most successful and popular football team in France. He was a sinuous and incisive outside right who was nicknamed l'Ange Vert ('The Green Angel'). Injured, he played only the last eight minutes of the 1976 European Cup Final, which Saint-Étienne lost 1–0 to Bayern Munich. He won three Division 1 titles (1974–1976) and one Coupe de France with Saint-Étienne. He transferred to Paris Saint-Germain in 1980 with whom he won one Division 1 title (1986) and two Coupes de France (1982–1983). In 1987, he was transferred to Toulouse FC, for whom he played two seasons before retiring in 1989. Asked in 2012 about his most memorable football moment, Rocheteau cited his 107th-minute decisive goal in the second leg of the 1975–76 European Cup quarter-final against Dynamo Kyiv. With the France national team, he won 49 caps from 1975 to 1986 and scored 15 goals. He played two matches and scored once at the 1978 World Cup, where France were eliminated in the group stage. Four years later in 1982, he played four matches and scored twice. He started for France in their semi-final defeat against West Germany, and successfully converted his penalty in the shoot-out. In 1986, Rocheteau scored only one goal but made four assists; he played four matches, including the quarter-final against Brazil (he was injured and substituted during that match in extra-time and hence did not partake in the penalty shootout), but did not play in the semi-final against West Germany. He missed the Euro 1984 final due to injury.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard hummed their low, electric note. It was a winter evening in the late seventies, the kind where the Loire fog crept up from the river and settled on the terraces like a grey wool blanket. Rocheteau was already in his position, that half-turn, that slight lean to his left, eyes tracking the ball not with his head but with the corner of his vision. Platini received the pass on the edge of the area, feinted, and slipped the ball through the channel between two defenders who had been marking the space, not the man. Rocheteau was already there. One touch to control. One touch to finish. The net rippled. The valley exhaled. And somewhere in the press box, a journalist underlined a name in his notebook for the third time that season, because the Fish had done it again, and it had looked effortless, and it always, always looked effortless.

Reader's Guide

Rocheteau is a former winger known for his incisive play and nickname 'The Green Angel'. He played for Saint-Étienne, Paris Saint-Germain, and Toulouse FC. He won three Division 1 titles and one Coupe de France with Saint-Étienne, and one Division 1 title and two Coupes de France with Paris Saint-Germain. He was a French international from 1975 to 1986, appearing in three World Cups and winning Euro 1984. After retirement, he became a sports agent, then head of the National Ethics Committee of the French Football Federation, and later held management positions at Saint-Étienne.

Did You Know?

• Rocheteau's nickname was l'Ange Vert ('The Green Angel'), not 'Le Poisson'.
• He scored a decisive goal in the 107th minute of the 1975–76 European Cup quarter-final second leg against Dynamo Kyiv.
• He successfully converted a penalty in the 1982 World Cup semi-final shoot-out against West Germany.
• He missed the Euro 1984 final due to injury.
• After football, he worked as a sports agent for David Ginola and Reynald Pedros.