Franck Sauzée

Atalanta The match fixing scandal at Marseille also had the consequence that the squad started to break up, with Sauzée being transferred to Serie A club Atalanta. The club eventually finished second bottom of the league and were consequently relegated to Serie B.

Sauzée is an Easter Road legend and is known as "Le God" by the Hibs fans, who voted him as their all time cult hero in a Football Focus poll carried out in 2005. Sauzée particularly enjoyed Edinburgh derby matches against Hearts and was unbeaten in nine derby games as player and manager. (Although Hearts did beat Hibs in a game when Sauzee was absent in May 2000) He scored in the 3–0 "Millennium derby" win at Tynecastle, and he also scored a headed goal in a 3–1 win while being knocked unconscious by an opponent's challenge.

International career Sauzée won 39 caps for France between 1988 and 1993, scoring nine goals. He served as the captain of the national side in nine of those matches, despite the side containing other notable players such as Eric Cantona, Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps, David Ginola and Jean-Pierre Papin.

Managerial career After the departure of manager Alex McLeish to Rangers in December 2001, Sauzée was appointed manager of Hibernian. He was only the second non-Scot to manage the club, and the first since 1919. The appointment came as something of a surprise because the Hibs board of directors had only met the previous day to discuss possible replacements for McLeish.

His time in charge was unsuccessful. Hibs only won one match in 15, and none in the 2001–02 Scottish Premier League. A win for last-placed club St Johnstone apparently prompted his sacking in February 2002, after 69 days as Hibs manager. After his sacking, Sauzée stated that he had no fear that Hibs would be relegated. and the club comfortably avoided relegation. The extremely brief nature of his tenure meant that it was not proven whether Sauzée would have been a good manager or not.

In September 2011 Ted Brack's There's Only One Sauzée, a book celebrating Franck Sauzée's time at Hibernian, was published by Black and White Publishing.

Commentator Sauzée returned to his native France after leaving Hibernian, and has since worked as a football pundit on French television. In the summer of 2012, he returned to Canal+.

Career statistics Scores and results list France's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Sauzée goal.

Honours Sochaux Division 2: 1987–88

Hibernian Scottish First Division: 1998–99 Scottish Cup runner-up: 2000–01

France U21 UEFA European Under-21 Championship: 1988