What do you remember from your short experience as a star consultant for Téléfoot, a channel that no longer exists since the beginning of February after the non-payment of TV rights?
“I had a lot of fun, there was a lot of skill and quality in the team set up by Jean-Michel Roussier. The atmosphere was excellent too, with excitement related to the creation of the chain. It’s a mess on arrival. The stop of Téléfoot was very brutal. I have no personal complaints at all. This adventure was just a bonus for me after my coaching career. The hardest part is for all the journalists, men and women, who lost a lot in this story. I am sad for them. “
Could you bounce off another soccer channel?
“It’s not in my plans at all. I said yes to Téléfoot because Jean-Michel (Roussier) was here. “
So, maybe we will see you again on a sidelines?
” No ! My coaching career is really over. I came full circle with this adventure in Nancy, at home, where it all started. It was not my vocation to finish in Ligue 2 but I did so to help ASNL maintain its position. It’s a great story, a great end of career. “
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Data is “a great tool”
What are you going to do ?
“Travel, enjoy life, go see big football matches as soon as all that is possible again, at the end of the health crisis. I will be sharing my time between the South of France and Portugal where I have just bought an apartment. “
Do you continue to follow ASNL and ESTAC, two outstanding clubs in your career, which will meet this Saturday in Ligue 2 at the Stade de l’Aube?
“Of course, I look at the results every time. I haven’t seen any matches this season but I have heard that Troyes played very good football with Laurent Battles as a coach. For ASNL, things have been going much better since the start of 2021. So much the better. I will always support Nancy. “
Are you still consulted from time to time by the ASNL for its sports policy?
“No and that’s normal! I am far from Nancy. And then there was the sale of the club. I’m happy for Jacques (Rousselot), he must have felt a deep relief given the very complicated economic situation. He deserves to be a little quiet after all he has brought. “
In this new football, it is a lot about data. What do you think ?
“It’s a great tool. I was also a pioneer in terms of data (statistics on players, on the game) at the time when I was training in Troyes in the 1990s. Data is very useful in the management of a team, to draw on hard data when analyzing performance. Data is also used enormously in recruitment to target profiles. But we should not rely solely on this. I repeat, it’s a great tool, but it’s not a strategy. “
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His opinion on the sale of AS Nancy Lorraine and ESTAC
ESTAC was bought in September by City Football Group, which was very close to taking over Nancy last spring, and ASNL went under the foreign flag on December 31, with the arrival of American and Sino-American shareholders.
This obviously did not escape Alain Perrin, former coach of the two clubs: “What matters most today is ” trading ” (Editor’s note: find young players with high potential to resell them with a great added value). Football now is the corporate world, it’s business. The decision-maker is no longer often the chairman who is a deputy chairman, it is the investors who put the money. We can be nostalgic for a certain time but that would be useless. It’s the evolution of football and society, that’s how it is, you have to adapt as best as possible ”.
R. J.
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