Three weeks later, does Farès Chaibi still haunt Arnold Temanfo’s nights? By anticipating with flair and mischief the hazardous back pass from the defender of Annecy, then kicking his ball ahead of Thomas Callens, the Franco-Algerian attacking midfielder sent Toulouse FC to the Stade de France for the first time in its history. This decisive goal, five minutes from the end of a tense Coupe de France semi-final in Haute-Savoie (1-2), symbolizes the brilliant first professional season of Farès Chaibi (20), author of 5 goals and 5 assists in 30 appearances in Ligue 1. He is above all the great man of the unexpected adventure in the Coupe de France, with 3 goals and 2 cumulative offerings in the competition, before challenging FC Nantes on Saturday (9 p.m.) .
Stats clearly superior to those he posted last season… with the TFC reserve team in National 3 (1 goal and 3 assists in 17 games), without playing a single minute with the professional group in Ligue 2. This shows how the pitchoun came out of almost nowhere last summer. Pitchoun, pitchoun, well not really because he only joined the TFC training center when he was almost 17 years old. And this after growing up in Bron Terraillon (Rhône), where football is omnipresent, a few steps from the family of Karim Benzema. “The big brother”, as Farès Chaibi considered him this month in The Team. And an inspiring icon for an entire sensitive neighborhood, like the huge fresco dedicated to him in November, after his Ballon d’Or.
“You’ll see if next year, I’m still here”
After taking his first steps at Sporting Club Bron-Terraillon (from 5 to 8 years old), like the star of Real Madrid, the youngest of the Chaibi siblings went to AS Bron, before joining FC Lyon in U15 elite thanks to a detection. Then defender of FC Lyon in this category, Kenny Oun had come to attend to discover possible future teammates. “Farès may have scored three goals that day, it was not the guy who caught the eye directly, says the current player of Lyon La Duchère (National 2). He had a good leg, he kept the ball well and he always put his hand on his opponent to control him, but he did not stand out yet in our U15 and U16 team. It was in national U17s that he gained strength, shining while still working a lot for the collective. »
The kind of unexpected season that changes a destiny. Amateur structure, with almost the entire workforce not in sport-studies (including Farès Chaibi), the club from the 8th arrondissement of Lyon achieved the feat of winning its group in which there are six training centers , including OL and ASSE. Kenny Oun remembers a discussion he had during the summer of 2018 with his promising teammate.
Farès has always been a confident guy and he told me: “You’ll see if next year, I’m still around here”. And in the process, he scored the goal of our first victory against Saint-Etienne (1-0). »
The one that triggered the epic of FC Lyon, alias “the pain in the training centers”, and by rebound piqued the curiosity of recruiters from all over France. The Girondins de Bordeaux do not regret having bet at the same time on defender Junior Mwanga, one of the revelations this season in Ligue 2. However, the recovery with the new staff of FC Lyon had sometimes been tense for Farès Chaibi in 2018.
“Farès slept football and ate football”
“It’s a strong character, confides the assistant coach at the time, Marcelo Collazos. He felt a little untouchable during the preparation and he had chained delays in training. We had not selected him for a preparatory match in Nîmes and he quickly corrected the situation behind. “So” at the limit of the frame “, as summed up by his ex-coach Jordan Gonzalez, he was then very often decisive, with 13 goals scored, including 7 from a free kick. The current coach of the group of N2 of Lyon La Duchère retains in particular the strike of 25 meters in the middle of the skylight, of the one who was nicknamed “Juninho” at AS Bron, synonymous with success at the last minute against AJ Auxerre (2-1).
But also “the intelligence of the game, the high volume and the passion” of his former midfielder or playmaker. “Farès slept football and ate football, he had always been playing football with his friends in Bron, often with older players,” continues the 32-year-old Franco-Spanish coach. His numerous games of five at the Golden Goal field in his Terraillon district also cost him that season, through injury, the return match against Rayan Cherki’s OL.
“I felt he was already programmed for the high level”
A rare incident in an almost perfect season, both individually and collectively. “His mentality was different from that of most of our players, in the sense that he never took training for fun, insists Marcelo Collazos. He wanted to win every exercise all the time. “Where some might have thought their luck was behind them, still being at 16 “off the radar” of youth teams and OL recruiters, Farès Chaibi still imagines a professional future. Jordan Gonzalez returns to the problem which was then that of the Algerian neo-international, who had his first two selections last month with the group of Djamel Belmadi.
For a long time, he escaped the eyes of recruiters, unlike other players in the team. Many people harbored reservations about him by labeling him as a fake slow. They did not imagine it going higher. But in his head, I felt he was already programmed for the high level. That’s why I saw him pass the mental course in Toulouse. He has really matured, we can see what an elegant player he is, capable of finding hidden passes. »
Like the latest for Zakaria Aboukhlal, last Sunday in Lorient (0-1), sublime and completed only four minutes after coming into play. Kenny Oun had no real doubts either, when he saw his buddy join Haute-Garonne: “Farès loves football too much, so if you put him in a footballer’s living environment, he can only enjoy himself. This opportunity in Toulouse came at the right time for him”.
The example of his big brother Ilyes can help him
And this at a time when his big brother Ilyes, 26-year-old striker from Servette Geneva (Switzerland) was in the trough of the wave, in Thonon Evian, after four years at the AS Monaco training center (alongside Kylian Mbappé), and two appearances with the pros. “I think his brother’s journey helped Farès, explains Marcelo Collazos. As it was the second time, his family probably knew better how to manage all that involves a signing in a training center. We felt that there was very good support around Farès. His father was very present but he did not put pressure on him. »
In an interview last year for the Actufoot site, Ilyes Chaibi indeed recognized “a lack of maturity” over his Monegasque period. “I was young, without any responsibility, I lived alone and I did a little as I pleased,” he said. Words that must have sounded like warnings to the young brother landing at the TFC. As a wink of fate, Jordan Gonzalez, Marcelo Collazos and Kenny Oun found and faced Farès Chaibi in Lyon on February 2, 2020, during the 3rd round of the Gambardella Cup between La Duchère and TFC (0- 3).
“What he did in U17, he still does, but in L1”
“He had been very good that day, it was obvious that he had a promising future in this club”, notes Marcelo Collazos. U19 nationals, N3 and now Ligue 1, the bright and shiny hope quickly crossed the threshold in the Pink City, where he signed his first professional contract in February 2022. “On television, I see almost the same player as I known, smiles Kenny Oun. His big strike against Montpellier (4-2 in October), he put two in exactly the same way in U17 with FC Lyon. Everything he did in national U17s, he still does now, but in Ligue 1.
And also therefore in the Coupe de France, where we left him, megaphone in hand in Annecy, celebrating the sesame for the final in front of a park of unleashed Toulouse supporters. “I don’t know if it’s the goal of a lifetime, but it’s the most important goal of my young career,” he then slipped after his crucial interception and stung ball. Before another even more explosive flash on Saturday at the Stade de France?