Behind the Bastards: "Part Two: The Evilest Football Player of All Time"

Podcast: Behind the Bastards
Host: Bobby Finger
Guest: Dana Schwartz
Date: August 21, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode completes the two-part exposé on Alexandre Villaplan, a once-celebrated French footballer whose life descended into criminality and ultimately into collaboration with the Nazis during France’s occupation. The hosts trace Villaplan’s arc from sporting legend, through addiction and match-fixing, to his notorious role as a war criminal in the service of the French Gestapo, revealing how personal failings, opportunism, and the horrors of history transformed “the evilest football player of all time.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Rise: Villaplan’s Football Fame (04:21–13:26)

• Early Career Success:

  • Villaplan is recruited by Racing Club de Paris, becoming a top athlete in a nascent professional sport.
  • "Vilaplan is the best ball header. He's one of the best passers. You gotta have him, right?" — Bobby (04:44)
  • Lives lavishly, spending earnings on gambling, nightlife, and ostentatious pleasures.

• Acclaim & the 1930 World Cup:

  • Captains France in the inaugural World Cup (Montevideo, 1930), leading the team to an opening victory against Mexico.
  • "He tells interviewers on the day, this is the most beautiful day of my life." — Bobby (07:41)

• Turning Point:

  • Despite initial success, France loses the next two matches and is eliminated.
  • Villaplan returns to France as a national hero—but the global economic crisis looms.

The Fall: Addiction, Gambling, and Crime (13:26–17:54)

• Descent into Crime:

  • Gambling debts entangle Villaplan with underworld figures.
  • Orchestrates a sports betting and match-fixing scandal at Olympique d’Antibes, rigging games and bribing teams for profit.
  • Caught and ejected from the club, though the manager is scapegoated.

• Personal Decline:

  • Career deteriorates further due to alcoholism, missed games, and overall lack of discipline—“He's not eating food, he's eating liquor and brothel. And he's engaging in... brothels. Like, that's his entire diet.” — Bobby (14:13)
  • Ends up playing in lower divisions, eventually fired for non-attendance.

From Washed-Up Athlete to Organized Crime (22:01–24:40)

• Transition to Professional Gambler (and Failure):

  • "He is now a professional gambler and he sucks at it, right? He's horrible at this job." — Bobby (22:24)
  • Arrested for race-fixing, spends time in and out of prison.

• Criminal Marginality:

  • Functions as an enforcer for Parisian gangsters. His physicality is now weaponized for debt collection and violence.

Collaboration & War Crimes with the Nazis (24:40–56:56)

• War Clouds and New Allegiances:

  • Called up as a reservist (1939), Villaplan avoids frontline combat, remaining in support units.
  • Demonstrates little loyalty to France, identifying more with the criminal/immigrant margins.

• Nazi Occupation and Underworld Opportunism:

  • With Paris under Nazi control, Villaplan taps into black market, racketeering, and extortion.
  • Quote from The Blizzard: “Vilaplan tried his hand at racketeering and blackmail, his preferred targets being black marketeers and Jews.” — read by Bobby (29:36)

• Joining the French Gestapo (Carlingue):

  • In prison, he’s recruited into Henri Lafont’s infamous Carlingue, the “French Gestapo,” collaborating directly with SS to crush resistance and target Jews.
  • Initially acts as a chauffeur/bodyguard, but rises due to his “work ethic and skill at social manipulation.” — Bobby (35:55)

• The BNA: North African SS Brigade:

  • Villaplan is promoted to Obersturmführer of the BNA (North African Brigade), a unit largely comprised of Algerians and other marginalized figures, tasked with anti-Resistance operations and atrocities.
  • “Hitler had started in the early 40s... funding an Arabic language French newspaper, which was geared towards recruiting and radicalizing Muslims who had immigrated to France from colonized nations.” — Bobby (39:33)

Atrocities & Massacres (47:36–56:56)

• Personal Involvement in War Crimes:

  • “Alex seizes the 59 year old mother of six by the hair. ‘Where is your Jew?’ he shouts... Men from the BNA torture two peasants in front of her. After being beaten and set ablaze, the two peasants were machine gunned. Alex laughs.” — Bobby reading from Guardian (48:20)

• Systemic Brutality:

  • The BNA avoids open combat with the Resistance, preferring mass reprisals and execution of civilians—including the massacre at Musedan (June 1944).
  • “Official records... tell of pillage, rape, plundering and burning of property, extortion and profiteering... Arrests, deportations or summary murders of civilians and executions of suspects took place on an almost daily basis.” — Bobby quoting Robert Pike (53:14)

• Villaplan’s Infamy and Wealth:

  • “He makes a fortune during this period of time. By some accounts, he becomes as wealthy or wealthier than he'd ever been during the height of his football career, because he's taking shitloads of bribes.” — Bobby (50:35)

Collapse, Betrayal, and Execution (56:56–62:13)

• Desperation & Double-Agent Routinely Claimed:

  • As Nazi defeat nears, Villaplan pretends to be a double agent, extorting captives:

    • “I am not their master. They are going to kill you. But I will try to save you... You will be the 55th if you give me 400,000 francs.” — Bobby (57:32 quoting eyewitness account)

  • “He sucks so bad. He's so awful.” — Dana Schwartz (58:11)

• Endgame and Reckoning:

  • Captured by Resistance agents on August 24, 1944, with a gun and fake credentials after a failed escape scam.
  • Tried and condemned as a conman and murderer; executed by firing squad on December 26, 1944.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Villaplan’s Dissolution:

  • “He's burning money as fast as he can spend it. Just lighting it on fire at the racetrack.” — Bobby Finger (06:01)

• On French Society’s Collapse:

  • “I saw a child drop a sweet which someone trod on and then the man behind bent down and picked it up, wiped it and ate it.” — Morvan Lebesque via Bobby (10:48)
  • “That makes me sad.” — Dana Schwartz (11:08)

• On His Atrocities:

  • “He is just beating a 59 year old woman with a fucking pistol butt... This is the real version of that character [from Inglourious Basterds], you know.” — Bobby Finger (49:32)
  • “He sucks so bad.” — Dana Schwartz (58:11)

• On Postwar Justice:

  • “On the day after Christmas 1944, he is executed by firing squad along with seven of his colleagues. Yeah. So we have a happy ending.” — Bobby Finger (60:38)
  • “Seems like the thing to do to that sort of person.” — Dana Schwartz (60:41)

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:21 | Villaplan’s football stardom, 1930 World Cup | | 13:26 | Start of Antibes match-fixing scandal | | 17:54 | End of athletic career, descent into lower leagues | | 22:01 | Transition to criminal underworld, failed gambling | | 24:40 | Outbreak of WWII and unwillingness to serve France | | 27:49 | Nazi occupation: black marketeering and collaboration | | 35:12 | Becomes higher-up in the Carlingue, French Gestapo | | 39:33 | Hitler’s propaganda to Arabic speakers; BNA/SS context | | 47:36 | Atrocities and massacres committed by Villaplan and the BNA | | 56:56 | Collapse of Nazi rule: Villaplan attempts to switch sides | | 60:38 | Capture, trial, and execution of Villaplan | | 62:13 | Reflections on justice and colonial influences |

Final Thoughts & Reflections

• Complexity of Villaplan’s Motives:
  The episode underscores Villaplan’s transformation from celebrated athlete to villain, driven not just by evil but by addiction, opportunism, and a lack of moral core. His actions, especially under Nazi occupation, mark him as a uniquely despicable figure in sports and wartime history.

• On Historical Forces and Individual Agency:

  • The hosts reflect on how shifting identities (colonizer vs. colonized, immigrant marginality) intersect with personal and societal trauma to produce collaborators and criminals of astonishing brutality.

• A Fitting End:
  “Justice won out in the end. Sort of.” — Dana Schwartz (61:38)

Guest Plugs

• Dana Schwartz:

  • Noble Blood: Historical royals and murder
  • Hoax: Historical hoaxes and scams

  “Fewer Nazis. I can promise that.” — Dana (61:58)

Fans of true crime, sports history, and twentieth-century European history will find this episode a chilling but riveting account of the depths to which fallen idols can sink, especially in times of chaos and moral collapse.