Reims

Raymond Kopa left Reims for Real Madrid in 1956, at the height of the club's only period of continental relevance. He would become the first Frenchman to win the Ballon d'Or, in 1958, but his football was shaped here, in a Reims side built by Albert Batteux. Batteux won a title as a player and then six more as coach — 1953, 1955, 1958, 1960, 1962 — and took the club to two European Cup finals, in 1956 and 1959, losing both to Real Madrid. He later managed France to third place at the 1958 World Cup, the tournament in which his own forward, Just Fontaine, scored 13 goals, a record that still stands. Fontaine finished as Reims' all-time top scorer, with 145 goals in 152 appearances.

Robert Jonquet captained that team through most of it, 577 matches across a career that began before Batteux's arrival and outlasted several of his teammates, and led the side out in the 1956 final. The club has changed name more than once since. It started life in 1910 as Société Sportive du Parc Pommery, founded by the Marquis Melchior de Polignac, and only became Stade de Reims in 1931. Bankruptcy in 1991 broke the continuity again — the club played on as Stade de Reims Champagne FC, then Stade de Reims Champagne, before reclaiming its old name in 1999.

The red-and-white colours date to 1938, from a merger with Sporting Rémois, and gave the club its nickname, Les Rouges et Blancs. Reims plays at the Stade Auguste-Delaune, where a run of championships and two European Cup finals were played out between 1949 and 1962 — six league titles in all.