Monday April 8 – 11:00 p.m.
We parted on the evening of the victory for Avranches when the young Martin Lecolier scored the winning goal in the last seconds of the match. Since then, a long convalescence has continued at the beginning of spring. The team began by falling back into its failings by falling at home against Châteauroux, before coming close to disaster in the Grand Ouest Lyonnais, trailing by two goals at the break. Something undoubtedly happened during this quarter of an hour in Chasselay's locker room since, upon returning to the pitch, the players were transformed and managed to snatch a draw.
READ ALSO : Hervé Blanchard and Stéphane Veaux, the voices of FC Sochaux
A few days later, in Beaujolais, the Sochaliens only won a new point against Villefranche, but their attacking football was really back, continuing the second half of the previous trip.
On this Monday evening, they once again delighted their supporters thanks to a 4-1 victory, in front of the Nancy rival in addition. Now three points from the minimum required to maintain itself, serenity had returned to the bays of Bonal, especially as good news is buzzing about the commitment of its main local shareholders, and that the SCIC subsidiary dedicated to training is now back on track.
Freddy “the survivor”
Tuesday March 9 – 3:00 p.m.
It is therefore in this peaceful context that I am received in a salon in Bonal by Freddy Vandekerkhove. If the reader has followed the FCSM for the past 25 years, they may skip a few lines; otherwise, we need to present it to you. Freddy is what we call an iconic personality of the club. Moreover, it is among the oldest, even the oldest. Arriving in 1999, even before Jean-Claude Plessis (first period), he held the position of steward, before becoming “Team manager” in recent years. Anyone familiar with these columns knows my lack of taste for English expressions, but Freddy explains the difference to me: the steward takes care of the material aspect, the players' equipment, the preparation of the locker room; The “Team manager” manages all the logistics of travel, meals and pre-season training locations.
In a club like Toulouse in Ligue 1, he explains to me, the roles are well separated and the “Team manager” is the boss of three stewards. In Sochaux, Freddy, although he has the highest status, simply manages both roles at the same time. Its mission is also to welcome new players, to find them an apartment or a house, to do everything to make the player and their family feel at home as quickly as possible. Freddy is also a confidant, a psychologist, the guy who goes to see the coach to explain to him that a player's drop in performance has nothing to do with a lack of will but rather with real problems. personal.
READ ALSO : David Desgouilles: “I met the Churchill of the Sochaliens”
Freddy therefore plays the role of big brother, “ no dad » he tells me, even if the increasingly significant age difference with the younger players could make people believe more in the second role than in the leading role. His position, at the crossroads of players, coaches and assistants, and the sports director, makes him the pivot of the daily life of the club. “ Where is Freddy? » must undoubtedly be the question most asked by players, who often have something to ask him, especially the younger ones. But Freddy is also emblematic, as indicated above, because of his longevity in the club, and the good nature he exudes with both supporters and his protégés.
In twenty-five years, he has been through everything and he, more than any other, can be described as a “survivor” since last September. Just think! He survived last summer’s crisis – “ On July 14, I knew that Nenking would not pay because, as a member of the works council, I had access to a lot of information “.
He survived the Wing Sang Li years, the Baskonia years – “ I still learned from contact with the Spaniards, in particular trainer Aira, even if I was obviously reluctant to the concept of timeshare “. At the time when the Basque consortium was running the club, he was the only Frenchman, along with Gérard Gnanhouan, goalkeeper coach, to speak French. Aira even leaves a manual for learning the language of Cervantes on his desk.
When Wing Sang Li and the Basques separated during the season, and Omar Daf took over from Aira, there were only three left on the technical staff: the Senegalese coach, Gnanhouan and… Freddy. All three on the bench when the club remained in Ligue 2 on the last day against Grenoble: “ The match was behind closed doors and we could hear the supporters on the square watching the match in streaming, projected on a large sheet, with a two-minute delay on the match. “. Finally, he survived the Nenking and Samuel Laurent years this “ atypical character who himself said that he knew nothing about football ” and that ” went all-in last year for promotion to Ligue 1; taking such a risk is not done “.
READ ALSO : “The Sochaux transfer window is first of all a big blow”
Freddy the big brother, or Freddy the survivor, which title will be chosen by the editorial staff of Marianne, when this eighth column will be put online? Both would fit him like a glove. Barely older than him, your servant was able to converse with him about our relationship to football and FCSM, even before he became an employee. He too, when he was a child, listened to the multiplex of a peripheral radio on match nights and added sticks in front of the club names to mark the goals scored.
He too cried the evening of the French Cup final lost to Metz in 1988: “ In 2007, Michaël Madar (who had missed the decisive penalty during the decisive penalty shootout in 88) came to the evening which followed our victory in the same conditions against OM. I told him that he could consider himself avenged “.
If Freddy is so emblematic, if he is adored by all the players who have been at the club for even just one season, it is because he now symbolizes everything why FCSM is loved beyond the Franche -Comté: a family club, with values of humility, a job well done, and attached to its roots. Isn't it him who hangs the Comtois flag on the locker room wall, including during away matches, to remind the players of the colors they must defend?
Friday April 12 – 10:00 p.m.
Much less successful than against Nancy, the FCSM was finally beaten (1-0) on the horrible synthetic pitch of Cholet, not very conducive to the passing game recommended by Oswald Tanchot. Nothing to panic about, though. This column will end next month, after the 34e and last day of this National Championship where, probably, the FCSM will play for an additional season.
