Yannick STOPYRA

Yannick Stopyra is a centre-forward who was developed by Redon, in the département of Ille-et-Vilaine (35). He joined Sochaux at the end of the 1970s where he started his professional playing career. He would experience plenty of successes with Sochaux, notably a runners-up medal in the French First Division in 1980, and he also took part in the European campaign which saw his side reach the Semi Finals of the UEFA Cup in 1981. This promising start to his career would also open the door to the French national team as of 1980. In 1983, he joined Rennes, the club he supported as a youngster, but his season would prove to be a failure from the team's point of view. Rennes finish bottom of the First Division, and were relegated to the second tier. He would leave Brittany to sign for Toulouse in 1984, where he would spend four seasons, even playing in Europe with them, with the notable epic encounter against the great Maradona's Napoli side. His real career highlight, however, would come in 1986, when he was selected to represent France at the World Cup Finals in Mexico. As a member of the starting line-up as centre-forward, he scored two goals in the tournament, which proved to be a good one for the French side. After spending four excellent seasons down in the South of France, he was recruited by Girondins de Bordeaux in 1988. In spite of playing a full part in his first season at Bordeaux, he was not retained by the club, and left for Cannes, where he would have two disappointing seasons between 1989-1991. His performance levels dropped thereafter, and his return after a transfer to Metz 1991 was also below-par. He would ultimately bring his professional career to a close in 1994, after spending a couple of seasons at Mulhouse in the French Second Division. After hanging up his boots, he went on become a manager at some smaller clubs in the Paris region, before passing his coaching badges to go into youth development, notably in France and Qatar. In 2012, he was taken on by Bordeaux in the club's player recruitment network.