Lucien Muller, first Frenchman to play for Real Madrid and Barcelona, dies at 91

Lucien Muller, an attacking midfielder nicknamed « le Petit Kopa » and the first Frenchman to play for Real Madrid and then FC Barcelona, died on January 20, 2026 at the age of 91. He would have turned 92 this Thursday.

A native of Bas-Rhin, Muller came to prominence at RC Strasbourg before joining Stade de Reims in 1959, where Raymond Kopa had just returned from Real Madrid. At the Champagne club, he established himself as one of the best attacking midfielders in the French championship, winning three league titles.

It was Alfredo Di Stéfano himself who requested his arrival in Madrid to complete the attacking trio alongside Ferenc Puskas. Muller won three consecutive Spanish championships there. The 1964 European Cup final against Inter eluded him despite a season in which he was considered the club’s best player.

Unlike Kopa, Muller did not return to France after Madrid. He made the move to Camp Nou and thus entered history as the very first Frenchman to wear both rival jerseys. With Barcelona, he won the Fairs Cup in 1966 and the Copa del Generalisimo. Present in the French squad for the 1966 World Cup in England, he did not play any minutes in competition — at that time, players competing abroad were regularly excluded from the national team.

Muller returned to Reims in 1968 for two final seasons as a player before becoming a coach, primarily in Spain. He led FC Barcelona to the 1979 Cup Winners’ Cup final, but was sacked before the match, which the Blaugranas won against Fortuna Düsseldorf. His only stint outside the Iberian peninsula took him to AS Monaco, where he won the Coupe de France in 1985.