“Why is the girl sad?” “, a child asks its mother. “Because the boys don’t want to play with her”, his mom honestly answers. What he retorts: “Well, they’re stupid! “
Judging by this protrusion, he’s happy to see that some things have changed. This parent-child exchange follows the first readings of Fan de foot, a series of children’s books launched on September 24 by Auzou editions.
The first two volumes, entitled The surprise attacker and Too much luck!, trace the beginnings of a mixed football team, whose six members face issues related to sport, but also to everyday life: equality between girls and boys, cheating, self-confidence …
“Many children’s literature series try to work on the theme of sport without always succeeding in making it truly pedagogical and educational. In Fan de foot, the theme of diversity is not treated with seriousness, because it would not have worked ” , explains author Éric Simard, whose characters have come to life thanks to the drawings of Karim Friha.
Fan de foot also benefits from two sponsors of choice, football professionals, Eugénie Le Sommer and Olivier Giroud, who distill their expert advice in each volume. “I immediately liked the opportunity to develop first readings with messages conveyed through football”, confides the goalscorer of Olympique Lyonnais, with whom the tome The surprise attacker found a special echo.
The pitch: “The football team has a problem! The opposing team is missing a member to be able to face them. Léonie then offers to replace the missing player, but that’s out of the question! Because it’s a girl, she’s going to make them lose. Fortunately, the team has more than one trick up its sleeve and their opponents will understand at their expense that girls should not be underestimated… ”
Eugenie Le Sommer: “My idols were rather boys”
This surprise attacker could have been Eugenie Le Sommer. The seven-time European champion with OL joined a club from the age of 4 and a half, in Ploemeur, in Morbihan, and played in mixed teams until she was 14.
“It was my passion, what I wanted to do so I didn’t ask myself too many questions, she recounts. I went to football to have fun, but having in the back of my mind the desire to progress, to be the best possible. Afterwards, I was aware that women’s football was unprofessional. I didn’t know any players because they weren’t seen on TV at the time, and I couldn’t identify myself. My idols were more of boys… ”
“The desire for a career came very late, she adds. The first professional contracts for girls came only ten years ago, it’s quite recent. “
“Your favorite players? “, asks him, teasingly, Olivier Giroud, during a meeting organized by video by the publishing house. “Zizou, necessarily”, she answers him with a smile.
“We sometimes watch the girls play during our meetings in the French team, assure the second highest scorer in the history of the Blues (42 goals). I was in front of my TV to support them during the last World Cup. I was pleasantly surprised at the development that women’s football has seen in recent years. There has been an incredible evolution in the game and I really enjoyed watching them play. We don’t say it enough, but Eugenie’s records are incredible (82 goals for Les Bleues). “
Olivier Giroud: “We would be very complementary in attack”
From there to imagine friendly matches by mixing the two French teams, in pre-season for example? Riding on the success of the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the former minister and presidential candidate Ségolène Royal relaunched the idea a little over a year ago, in an interview with Yahoo Sport .
” Yes and no, answers Eugenie Le Sommer, diplomat. Yes, because that would obviously be very nice. But I also want to say no, because, in my opinion, to compare men’s and women’s football is to be wrong. We don’t compare the women’s 100m to the men’s 100m and we don’t try to imagine a mixed race, she develops. We each have our specificities and physiologies. The physical would take over anyway … “
“Obviously we could play together at the technical level, she continues. But for the rest, it’s nature and that’s just how it is. We just want to be respected for what we do. We have our story, the boys have theirs. We want to continue writing it and make little girls want to play football. “
Olivier Giroud understands ” absolutely “ the answer. However, “I would have a lot of fun playing this kind of match, he said. Women’s football has progressed so much tactically and technically… If it wasn’t in a competitive spirit, that would be really nice. Now, to set up, it will not necessarily be easy. “
Especially with their 124 goals scored between them in the blue jersey, Le Sommer and Giroud could form a fiery attack, “And very complementary” according to the center forward at 102 selections.
> Read also: What if women played football with men in the same mixed championship?
“I heard all the time: football is not for you”
Because the two ambassadors of Fan de foot were built in adversity. He had to face the perpetual questioning, she the incessant remarks from a young age.
“I heard all the time: football, it’s not for you, it’s not for girls but for boys, why do you play football, etc., confides Eugenie Le Sommer. But I never went through these reflections, I always said to myself: well if look, I can juggle, I can play football… I wanted to prove that a girl could play. Of course I heard things that could have slowed me down, hurt me, question me. But no. “
“The most important thing is to believe in your qualities, even if the circumstances are unfavorable”, insists Olivier Giroud.
Asked by LCI after the Women’s World Cup, Julien Sorez, lecturer at Paris-Nanterre University, had notably denounced “A socio-historical construction” around football: “Women are said to be slower, less powerful. By persuading women that they had nothing to do on a football field, we made them accept, we made them understand that it was natural, anchored in the biological. These biological arguments have pushed women out of the field. “
“I have met a lot of women who have had regrets”
Eugenie Le Sommer, she, “Do not hold it against the previous generations who have a slightly more archaic vision, even of the place of women in general, because their model and their education were built like that”, she says.
“Deconstructing that is much harder than building with education, she continues. However, this is what makes things change. I have met a lot of women who said to me: “I would have liked to play when I was little but my parents didn’t want to or there were no clubs”. They had regrets. “
Today, she believes that the image of this sport has changed: “Parents are less afraid of registering their little girl for football. So all I can tell them is to go for it! “
And add: “A little girl, in order for her to have the right to play in the schoolyard or in a club with the boys, she has to be strong and does not have the right to be zero. But there are plenty of boys who suck and we don’t wonder, they can play. This is what I want to change. Regardless of their level, everyone has the right to play. “
The top scorer in the history of Les Bleues, who sometimes leads football camps with young footballers, therefore prefers to speak of equality rather than diversity. Because if the rules were to be adapted to develop mixed football (a goal that counts twice for a woman, contact between men and women prohibited, etc.), this could have the opposite effect from that sought, and “Reinforce the social roles attributed to each of the sexes”, thus warned researcher Laurence Prudhomme in The Parisian .
Another option could however be imagined. Like biathlon, the Blue could play a half against their counterparts from an opposing nation, before the Blues take over in the second period …
What if that inspired the screenplay for an upcoming volume of Fan de foot ? The third volume will be released in January. “My daughter really likes football, indicates Olivier Giroud. I plan to give these books to his school and to introduce him to football and its values. “ So that, very soon, the latter can exchange a few passes with dad.
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