He formed a quartet of fabulous alumni, with Wilfried Van Moer, Léon Semmeling and Eric Gerets, installed in the grandstand. Piot, like Gerets, is an orphan of Van Moer and Semmeling, recently deceased, but he remains faithful to his Standard, despite difficult times. While waiting for clarity for the future – “I have confidence in 777 Partners”he assures – he tells himself.
He took advantage of Nicolay’s “disappearance” to play his first match
The story is known to older people, but Christian Piot always has fun telling it when asked. He played his first match for Standard, against Union, after Jean Nicolay, the holder, “disappeared” for three days.
“Jean loved fishing, and so did I. One Monday, the day after a match, he asked me to accompany him for a fishing trip. We are settled in then Jean goes to have a drink at the fishing club refreshment bar. But he is known, Jean, and he stays for a while with the regulars while I, after warning him, leave to go to training – he was exempt and had to arrive later for treatment. He did not come for treatment, nor the following two days…
The players asked me where Jean was, his wife called me on Monday evening because he hadn't come home. And then, on Thursday, he returns to training completely normally. He goes to see Mr. Hauss (the Standard coach), and I will never know what was said in the office, but the next day, when the team was written on the board for the Sunday match, it was my name that appeared on the goal. Louis Pilot says: Coach, I think you were wrong, it's not Piot but Nicolay.
I was a little uncomfortable, because Jean was my childhood idol, but he never said anything to me and I played that first match… then the following ones because Jean injured his shoulder following contact with Van Moer in training.”
I said to Jean: “Nicolay, you’re annoying me!” and he replied: “You’re ready, kid”
Christian Piot plays his first matches for Standard and is satisfactory. Nicolay will take his place later, and a certain healthy competition has established between the two men. “During training, Jean would call out to me and make comments. At first, I didn't say anything, then one day it got on my nerves, and I blurted out to him: Nicolay, you’re annoying me! He answered me straight away: You're ready kid.
I don't know if he expected this reaction from me, but during the last match of the season, at half-time, he took me aside to say to me, in Walloon because he always spoke Walloon: you are going to play the second half, it will be my wedding present – I was actually going to get married a few days later. After the meeting, René Hauss told Roger Petit (general secretary of Standard) : next season, the better of the two will play. But Jean has gone to Daring.”
“Cruyff wanted me at Barça and Fontaine at PSG, but it was no”
Christian Piot played 322 matches for Standard, between 1968 and 1978. He was one of the best goalkeepers in Europe and he had no shortage of transfer offers, always refused by Roger Petit. “One day I received a call from the manager of Barcelona, who told me that Johan Cruyff wanted me to join the team. I am flattered by the interest, but we had to go through the Standard. The day after the call, Roger Petit called me into his office to tell me: I heard you received a call from Barcelona. You won't go. There was no discussion possible.
Just Fontaine, when he was PSG coach (1973-76), also called me to have me come. Refusal. Marseille, an Italian club, everyone was turned away. Club Bruges also made me a very good offer, with a car, villa and more attractive salary. But, adamant, Roger Petit refused again. That day, I was a little angry and I let it be known, especially since Jean Thissen had obtained his transfer to Anderlecht. In return, I got an extension of my contract and fortunately, in a way, since due to my knee injuries, I played less afterwards.
Goalkeeper-penalty taker: “I had the same technique as Eden Hazard”
Christian Piot was not only a very good goalkeeper, since he also took penalties. “I scored ten, in the championship alone”, he likes to add. However, it was in the European Cup that Piot took his first penalty. “I loved taking penalties in training, and during a match at Feyenoord, Dolmans, who was our official penalty taker, missed his attempt. I pulled the next one, and it was gone. I missed a few (smile). As I was a goalkeeper, I knew a little about a goalkeeper's reflex. My technique was to fix one side at the time of support, depending on where the goalkeeper was going to go. A bit in the style of Eden Hazard, or it was he who copied me (smile). One day during a Summer Cup match (friendly tournament), I had to take three penalties in the same match against Malmö. In the third, I was a little bored, because I didn't know how to surprise the goalkeeper again.”
“Real Madrid, the most beautiful memory, and a bonus of €120”
In his binder of memories, Christian Piot points to the qualification against Real Madrid, in the round of 16 of the 1969 Champions Cup, as his best memory. “Real at the time, with Gento, was one of the good teams in Europe. We won 1-0 in Sclessin, but above all we had a very good match in Madrid (success 2-3). Financially, it wasn't like it is now. We received the equivalent of €120 bonus for qualification (smile). We received the equivalent of three factory worker salaries, which represented 30,000 old francs, to which we added victory bonuses. We weren't professional, but we trained every day and we didn't have a side job. After my career, I learned that Roger Petit had not contributed to our pension… So I always worked after my career, as an assistant and goalkeeper coach at Standard, but not only that: I ran a store. souvenir items in Banneux, I worked in a bakery, I was a stock manager in an insulation materials company. I still help my children now, it keeps me active.”
He knew Preud'homme as a kid before giving way to him
Christian Piot had to end his career at the age of 30 due to recurring knee injuries. “The last one was during training: on a simple shot from Riedl, which I wanted to block, my knee cracked. I was operated on five times, we didn't insist. I had to stop.” And this is how Michel Preud'homme started at Standard. “He wasn't number two, actually, because there was Jean-Paul Crucifix before him. But Jean-Paul injured his head. We'll never know how Michel's career would have turned out if I hadn't gotten injured, but we can't deny that he had obvious talent. He would have had a great career no matter what.”
In fact, Piot knew Preud'homme as a kid. “At the beginning of the 70s, we had Wednesdays off and René Hauss wanted us to go and give training in clubs in the region. With Jacky Beurlet, we went to Ougrée, where Michel trained. He was 9-10 years old. It would be presumptuous to say that we saw that he had the talent to make a career. But he had a little something extra. We lived in the same village, with Michel, so I took him home after training.”
