At the Commandery,
After the time of diagnosis, that of action. Since his arrival at the presidency, Pablo Longoria has not minced his words about the situation of the Olympique de Marseille training center: A “shameful lack of rigor and discipline”, and infrastructures far from being at the level, to cite only these examples. An inventory shared by Yann Daniélou, the director of the training center, and especially Marco Otero, technical director of training.
The two new strong men of the formation – the first arrived last summer, the second at the start of the year – invited the press on Thursday for a relaxed discussion around the main lines of work now in place within the Marseille nursery, so much criticized for its lack of results in terms of trained players. “Everyone said it was impossible to change the training center, I think it’s impossible for it to be impossible”, began by saying the Spaniard, who passed through Basel, Spartak Moscow or Valencia, to show his motivation.
Infrastructure
Work at the training center has already begun. Impossible to access, for example, the parking lot of the training center – we even thought at one point that we would join the “Marseilles” loft with Jordan Amavi. While the players of the pro workforce took off for their pre-season training camp in Germany, the gardeners took their place to transform the unsuitable synthetic of the ground reserved for training to a hybrid lawn.
“In terms of infrastructure, there is nothing. There is not even a weight room and clubhouse on the OM Campus. And the medical space is in Algeco”, sums up Marco Otero. “If I come to visit the facilities of the training center with my child, of course I tell him to go elsewhere,” adds Yann Daniélou. The change of pitch is only the beginning of the Olympian management’s desire to invest both in the Commandery and on the OM Campus, in order to create the conditions and “a culture” dear to Pedro Iriondo, director of strategy, and more generally to the Olympian management. The young people of the training center and the women’s team could play elsewhere than on campus, which is not very suitable for matches.
Strengthen the OM next generation partnership
One of the problems quickly identified by the new management of the academy is the difficulty of convincing a young player from the region to join OM. Rather than attracting hundreds of young people to football school to “fire 45 at the end of the season, which is not correct”, in the words of Marco Otero, OM will rely on its partner clubs. The OM Next Generation program, set up by Jacques-Henri Eyraud and which brings together around twenty Marseille clubs, will evolve. “When we arrived at a club, the first thing they asked us was the amount of the check for the partnership. We want to get out of this logic, ”executive Pedro Iriondo.
“When you are from Marseille, everyone dreams of playing at the Vélodrome. But for a young person to want to join the training center, you have to be able to seduce within the territory with which you collaborate”, specifies Marco Otero. Beyond the financial partnership “and displaying an OM cover that will allow you to convince three more minots”, the club wishes to provide partner clubs with “training tools” and “a clear charter” in order to develop players. And to better identify the profiles desired by management through “common software”. The number of partner clubs will not be reduced, it should even increase, but in this logic of support more than partnership. The goal is to rely on people who “know the Marseille context”, supported by OM referents.
Prioritize quality over quantity
Finished the football school, therefore, the pre-training now begins with the U10s at Olympique de Marseille. “With a single team per category to favor quality over quantity”, according to Yann Daniélou. A decision taken in relation to infrastructure, too, and to better inculcate the guiding values of OM from its training center to the first team: “rigor and performance”. A rigor to which the club is also subject in terms of recruitment: “If we are not the first choice, we stop the discussion”, are very clear the two trainers.
The U16 category, whose sporting interest is limited, has been removed to allow the U15s to play as U17s. The results are not the goal anyway, which is “to produce young people ready to become pro”, more than to win matches. “Each week we do not prepare the match, but the development of the player, summarizes Yann Daniélou. Which did not prevent us from being champions of France U17. “Quality to the detriment of quantity will also allow better support for young people, with the provision of therapists and psychologists, but also education on social issues, such as sexual assault or the death of Nahel. “If I didn’t go into my player’s kitchen, it’s because I didn’t do my job,” summarizes Marco Otero.
Frankness and reality
“Having dreams is good, but you also have to face reality and no one is calling for you”. This is what a player from the training center will hear from the mouth of Marco Otero, whose key word is frankness. So no more pro contracts to see this or that player languish in reserve that we preferred to sign rather than take the risk of seeing him slip away elsewhere. “Your dream is to join the first team. I will help you reach the reserve, because if you reach it, then you can make football your job, ”says Yann Daniélou when asked what he will say to his players. Quite simply because “not everyone can wear the OM jersey”.
Hence the idea of keeping the reserve team, unlike other clubs like AS Monaco or PSG, to “make them play in lots of different situations”, and keep them in a spirit of “competitiveness”. “I saw that in Marseille we like to make a difference, so allow us to do things differently,” summarized Marco Otero. A different method, for better results? “We’ll see if in 10 years we can admire a player we trained from the stands of the Vélodrome”, concludes the technical director.