Salif Keita is no more. Suffering from serious respiratory problems for months, the one nicknamed the “black panther” breathed his last, at 77, in Bamako, the capital of Mali. This football artist had set fire to all the stadiums in France when he wore the colors of Saint-Étienne and then those of Marseille, in the 1960s and 1970s.
Legend has it that he landed, one day in September 1967, without shoes and penniless at Orly airport and that a taxi driver agreed to drive him, 500 kilometers away. Saint-Étienne was the dream team of this young African footballer. Certainly, the life of Salif Keita is a beautiful novel, full of twists and turns, but this legend is like all the others: only partly true. It will however inspire a song in Monty, old glory of the yé-yé years, under the title “A taxi for Geoffroy-Guichard”. It will also give ideas to a few filmmakers. Keita even starred in “Le Ballon d’or”, a Franco-Guinean film by Cheik Doukouré, released in 1994 and freely adapted from his story.
One day in July 1993, sitting in the office of his beautiful hotel in Bamako, located on the banks of the Niger River, the former football star will rectify the story of his arrival in France to the author of his lines. In Mali, Salif Keita was already well known when a Lebanese from Bamako, a fan of the Greens, wrote to the Saint-Étienne club to advise him to recruit a black pearl. Roger Rocher, the president of Saint-Etienne, replies that he agrees to submit her to a test. Mali then lives under the rule of Modibo Keïta, close to the Soviet Union but not well in court in Gaullist France, whose African policy is dictated by the formidable Jacques Foccart. Not sure he could leave his country, Salif Keita, then 23 years old, decided to go to Monrovia, Liberia, to board a plane for France. Unfortunately, everything is stolen in the adventure. Landed at Orly on September 14, 1967, where no one greets him, he manages to convince a taxi that he is expected in Saint-Étienne thanks to a letter from the club. Reassured after a confirmation phone call, the driver put the gas in the direction of Forez. He will be paid for the race on arrival more than a thousand francs of the time.
In Saint-Étienne, where he will not be immediately aligned with the first team, Salif Keita will mark the history of the Greens with his genius for dribbling, his elegance with the ball, his sense of placement, his unique speed of execution. So much so that in his honor, a black panther, his nickname, would become the emblem of the club in 1968. Is it a sign of fate? This year, AS Saint-Étienne, which plays in the depths of the Ligue 2 classification, has just changed its logo, abandoning this legendary panther. Among the Greens, where Keita replaces another legendary player whose history is intertwined with that of decolonization, the Algerian Rachid Mekhloufi, he plays with Georges Carnus, Bernard Bosquier, Robert Herbin, Hervé Revelli, Georges Bereta, who comes , too, to die. He won three French championship titles (1968, 1969, 1970), two French Cups (1968 and 1970) and scored 120 goals in 149 games! He will be the first African Golden Ball in history in 1970. During the 1970-1971 season, he scored four quadruplets and scored 42 goals, which allowed him to finish 2nd top scorer in the championship, behind “the Eagle Dalmatian”, nickname of a certain Josip Skoblar, the Croatian striker who makes the beautiful days of Marseille.
Marseille, Keita joined the following year, after a lively controversy, due to major financial issues (already!) and a falling out with Roger Rocher. Chance of the calendar, for his first match with Marseille, he faces Saint-Étienne and scores two goals. Final score: 3-1. Keita will then play in Spain, Valencia, and Sporting Portugal. Then he flew to the United States, where he ended his career in 1980, in Boston. There he will find Pelé, who has also decided to hang up his boots after a few seasons at the Cosmos in New York.
King Pelé held Salif Keita in very high esteem. On March 31, 1971, in fact, a friendly match was organized at the Stade de Colombes between the legendary Santos club, where the Brazilian shined, and a selection of the best players from Saint-Etienne and Marseille, which obviously included the Malian. The match was televised – a rarity at the time – and football fans only had eyes for Pelé. Edson Arantes Do Nacimento, his real name, is already a triple world champion and the best player of all time. That evening, however, on the ground, the twirling Keita will eclipse the rare paws of Pelé. The team will headline the next day: “Keita FC equal to Pelé FC”. Modest, Salif Keita confided in the locker room: “It was the first time I met Pelé, he was very nice to me. But Pelé, it’s still Pelé.
After the United States, where he worked for another four years in a bank, Salif Keita returned to Bamako. And opens a hotel with restaurant. He also founded a football training center, which he transformed into a first division team. In June 2005, he became president for four years of the Malian Discipline Federation. In 2018, a stadium was named after him.
Salif Keita, as elegant in life as on the pitch, was more than a player, than an ex-football star. A wise entrepreneur, he was able to convert successfully. But instead, like many others, of resting on the laurels of his past glory and making his fortune grow without risk, he knew how to put himself at the service of his country when his country was freed from the iron regime. Moussa Traoré in 1991, who had participated in the coup that overthrew Modibo Keïta in 1968. The former Saint-Étienne striker then became Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in charge of private initiative in a transitional government . The country is then led by a lieutenant-colonel, Amadou Toumani Touré, who organizes elections and cedes power to civilians in 1992. A period begins which will probably be the freest and most fruitful in the contemporary history of Mali. . Salif Keita was very proud of it. Unfortunately, he has also seen, in recent years, his country reconnect with the torments of the past.