The Montpellier football club (MHSC) announced this Tuesday morning the death at 58 of Bruno Martini, former goalkeeper of the France team. “A great figure of French football and the MHSC, our friend Bruno, went away tonight,” the club wrote in a statement. The deputy director of the Montpellier training center had recently been hospitalized in serious condition after cardiac arrest.
Between 1987 and 1996, Bruno Martini made 31 selections under the colors of the France team, with which he played in Euro 1992 and Euro 1996. The former goalkeeper of the Blues, originally from Nevers, had taken the selection relay of Joël Bats, semi-finalist of the 1986 World Cup and European champion in 1984, before handing over to Fabien Barthez, preferred to Parisian Bernard Lama.
European Champion Hope
Before evolving at the highest level, Martini had become European Champion Espoir (1988) within a promising generation led by Eric Cantona, Laurent Blanc, Vincent Guérin, Franck Silvestre, Franck Sauzée …
With the Auxerre jersey, he played in a UEFA Cup semi-final against Dortmund in 1993 and won the Coupe de France in 1994, before joining Montpellier in the summer of 1995, where he ended his career. four years later.
At the end of his brilliant career, Martini, a respected figure in French football, joined the national technical direction, where he was responsible for more than a decade (1999-2010) for the French doormen and set up the training of high-level guards. Holder of a coaching diploma, he also provided a short interim at the head of the Montpellier team alongside Pascal Baills, after the resignation of Rolland Courbis in December 2015 and before the appointment of Frédéric Hantz at the end of January 2016.
