Jean-Pierre Papin

Jean-Pierre Papin (born 5 November 1963) is a French football manager and former professional player who played as a forward and is the current technical advisor of Ligue 1 club Marseille.

Born in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1963, Papin was the son of a professional football player, Guy Papin.

After his parents divorced, he moved to live with his grandmother in Germont, a French city located near the Belgian border.

At age 15, Papin started his professional career with Valenciennes, in Northern France, before moving to Club Brugge in Belgium.

Papin had a very successful first season at Club Brugge, scoring 32 goals in 43 games.

Trained at Jeumont, he signed his first professional contract in 1984 at Valenciennes.

Recruited by Brugge, he had an excellent season, winning the Belgian Cup and being selected for the French team for the 1986 FIFA World Cup.

Capped 54 times and captain of the France team 11 times, Jean-Pierre Papin won the bronze medal at the 1986 World Cup and competed in Euro 1992.

During this period, Papin scored 181 goals in 279 games and was the league's top scorer for five consecutive seasons (from 1988 to 1992).

Recruited by Marseille, he experienced the peak of his career and won with Marseille, the Ligue 1 in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992, the Coupe de France in 1989 and reached the final of the UEFA Champions League in 1991.

During Papin's hugely successful spell at Marseille, with the Frenchman as striker and skipper Marseille won four French league championships in a row (1989–1992), a league and cup double in 1989 and reached the final of the European Cup in 1991, losing to Red Star Belgrade after on penalties.

Injuries and the emergence of the Zinedine Zidane generation moved away from the selection and his international career ended in the mid-1990s.

Considered to be one of the best centre-forwards of his generation, he won the Ballon d'Or in 1991.

While at Marseille he won the Ballon d'Or, awarded to Europe's top footballer, in 1991.

In 1992, he was transferred the highest in the history of football, when he left Olympique de Marseille for AC Milan with which he scored in 1994, the Serie A and the UEFA Champions League.

In July 1992, Papin joined Italian giants AC Milan for a world record fee of £10 million, and was the first high-profile French player to join the Italian league since Michel Platini.

However, he never established himself as a regular first team member with the rossoneri due to injuries and adaptation problems.

As a foreign player in the Pre-Bosman rule era, Papin also suffered from the three-foreigner rule that made him compete for playing time with other foreign players.

He entered as a substitute during the 1993 Champions League final in which Milan lost to his former club, Marseille.

He won the Champions League in the next year, but did not play in the final.

Nevertheless, Papin has kept good memories of his spell in Italy and frequently cites former Milan managers Fabio Capello and Arrigo Sacchi as his models when coaching is concerned.

In 1994, he was transferred to Bayern Munich for £2.1 million, but his first season was once again plagued by injuries.

In his second season in Germany he was part of the side that won the UEFA Cup against Bordeaux, a club that Papin would join the following season.

He was twice linked with clubs in England later in his playing career.

First, in March 1994, he was a transfer target for Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.

He joined Bayern Munich, with which he won the Europa League in 1996.

He was not retained in the French selections which reached the semi-finals of Euro 1996 and won the 1998 World Cup.

In 1996, after their eight-month-old daughter was shown to have serious cerebral lesions, Jean-Pierre and his wife set up an association "Neuf de Coeur" (Nine of Hearts; Papin's shirt number was 9) to help others in that situation and, particularly, to find and apply methods to mentally and physically educate such children.

He returned to France, to Bordeaux where he was a finalist in the Coupe de la ligue in 1997 and 1998 and then ended his professional career at Guingamp.

With Bordeaux, he lost the 1997 Coupe de la Ligue final against Strasbourg and lost the 1998 Coupe de la Ligue final.

Towards the end of his spell with Bordeaux in 1998, he was a target for ambitious Fulham, then a Division Two (third tier) side, and even expressed his desire to sign for the club.

However, neither transfer ever happened and Papin finished his career without having spent any time in England.

Papin's professional career ended in 1998 with Second Division side Guingamp.

Papin finished his career as a player in the amateur club US Cap-Ferret between 2001 and 2004.

Then, after five years of managing, he played in another amateur club, AS Facture-Biganos Boïen.

He was included in the FIFA 100, a list of the greatest living footballers, published in 2004 for the centenary of the FIFA, signed by Pelé.

He was named one of the best European footballers on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the UEFA in 2004.

He is famous in particular for his long shots in first intention, his overhead kicks, and his volleys, which are known as Papinades.

The nickname of JPP is attributed to him by supporters and journalists.

Although he only played one season for Club Brugge, he was elected as its greatest ever foreign player by the supporters in 2008.