For Bruno Genesio, “French coaches are undercut”. – Mathieu Pattier / SIPA
- Pablo Longoria has knocked out French training and French coaches in an interview with the Spanish daily El País.
- This Thursday at a press conference, Bruno Genesio defended the talent of French coaches who “are undercut” in his eyes.
- He also explains that they find it difficult to export themselves because of a poor command of foreign languages.
He put his foot in the dish and very clean. In an interview granted in the Spanish daily El País at the beginning of the week, the president of OM Pablo Longoria dezinced the French formation, compared to “the NBA of Europe”. “It is football that is always played in the street, it is individual training before the collective,” he said. The new Marseille boss has not been kind to the French coaches either. “Objectively, if we analyze the global market, it is one of the countries that exports the fewest coaches. They are not selling collective ideas, ”he added. These sentences made a good part of the French leaders like Hubert Fournier or Raymond Domenech jump, who answered him curtly.
Bruno Genesio did not appreciate either the words of the young Spanish president, seeing it as a new attack against “the French coaches who are undercut” in his eyes. “As soon as a foreign coach arrives, it’s always extraordinary, everything will be revolutionized,” he said at a press conference on Thursday. This is sometimes the case and it should be emphasized because the contribution of foreign coaches also helps us to progress. But there are also French coaches who work very well and their work is not put forward ”.
“The big flaw is foreign languages”
The Stade Rennais coach particularly praised the work of Christophe Galthier (Lille), David Guion (Reims), Stéphane Moulin (Angers) or Michel Der Zakarian. Without forgetting to pay tribute to Zinédine Zidane. “Zizou, we don’t talk much about it in relation to the track record he has. I find that he is not put forward in relation to the work he has done and what he has gained compared to other foreign coaches ”.
After spending a year and a half in China, Bruno Genesio also knows better than anyone why French coaches are exported so little. “The big problem is that we are not good enough for foreign languages,” he said. This is a big defect compared to other nationalities who are able to speak two, three or even more languages. There is a lot of work to be done in training because it is not in our culture to learn a foreign language from an early age unlike in other countries ”.
The image of “cautious and defensive” coaches
For Bruno Genesio, French coaches are also “less sexy” in the eyes of supporters and followers because “they do not have the card”. “They may not have the look, the way of speaking or the network,” he explained.
But they are not all “defensive and cautious”, an image that often sticks to their skin. “It’s very French that to want to put people in a box, he added. The Spanish coach has the image of a coach who will play, the English coach will necessarily have the “fighting spirit”. But it is all very reductive. In each country, there are different coaches profiles ”.