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Amphetamines, Alcohol and Affairs... The Colourful Career of France’s Forgotten Man

In 1980, 23-year-old Jean-Francois Larios had the footballing world at his feet. Voted France Football’s Player of the Year, he would go on to win the Le Championnat with St-Etienne the following season and set off for the 1982 World Cup in Spain an important member of Les Bleus squad, with 15 caps and 5 international goals already to his credit.

With good looks and long, dark-flowing hair, Larios could almost have been considered fore-runner to the style invoked by David Ginola years later. And many in France believed he could’ve been better than the maestro Michel Platini himself, the most celebrated French-born player in history.