Since Valenciennes qualified for the final four of the Coupe de France on February 28 in Rouen (1-1, 2-4 on penalties), the life of Jean Louchet changed. Hero of this qualifier, synonymous with the semi-final against OL, this Tuesday (8:45 p.m.) at Lyon-Décines, the VA goalkeeper responded to around ten media requests before this meeting. “It’s not as if I had a minister’s schedule either,” smiles the man who has really just made his professional career take off at the age of 27, with 23 Ligue 2 matches played this season.
An astonishing destiny for this player trained for two years at PSG (from 2014 to 2016), who found himself without a club last summer, at the end of his first professional contract with Niort. For 20 minutesJean Louchet looks back on his tortuous journey, on this match played in July 2023 against Valenciennes with the team of the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP), as well as on this paradoxical season in the North, between struggles in Ligue 2 ( 20th and almost condemned to the National, with 2 successes in 30 days) and golden parenthesis in the Coupe de France.
It’s rare, in 2024, to interact with a professional footballer who doesn’t have the slightest account on Instagram, Facebook or X…
Yes, I’m not a fan of social media at all. The less time I spend on it, the happier I am. It’s not necessarily useful, so I’m fine with not having that distraction. I live really well without social networks (smile).
Did the turning point in your career take place on July 15, 2023, with this UNFP-Valenciennes match (1-2)while you were unemployed?
Yes, now we can say that. I don’t know at all how things would have evolved for me without this match. I had contacts with National clubs, but without a real offer on the table. Playing this match came at just the right time, VA goalkeeper coach Damien Perquis was able to see me in live. I’m delighted that it happened this way, destiny is well done.
Do we feel any particular pressure before playing such a match, which is like a job interview?
The first important thing when you arrive at the UNFP is to put your ego aside. This is a very good point: we realize that we are all experiencing the same situation, that of a player who finds himself without a club. But afterward, it remains a football match, with pressure comparable to a classic match. On paper, it’s a friendly meeting, but for us players, it’s super important because we stake our careers on it.
There were four goalkeepers at the UNFP last summer. There were turnovers, and it fell to me for the second period that day. Then I was able to go on an internship with VA in the Netherlands and play two matches with the club in Belgium. It was a very good opportunity, and I then signed a two-year professional contract. It just had to be written like that.
Finding yourself unemployed, were you starting to get used to the idea of no longer being a professional footballer?
No, if I went to the UNFP, it was because I wanted to stay professional. I thought it might open up for me at some point. Even before this period without a club, it was never super simple for me. But yes, I did not exclude the possibility of finding myself again in the amateur world. I saw this period as my last chance.
What memories do you have of your first steps in football, during your childhood in Oise?
Basically, I played tennis, while my father and my older brother played football. And then one day, my father bought a goal which he put in our garden. My brother was shooting, I ended up in goal and I loved it. It happened like that, and then my father was my coach in the small Sainte-Geneviève club.
After Sainte-Geneviève, Beauvais, the youth center of Liévin and Amiens, at the age of 17 you joined the PSG training center as a trainee. So do you have the feeling of changing world?
It was incredible, we realize that everything is going much faster. Our level necessarily progresses when we participate in training sessions alongside Sirigu, Trapp and Douchez, but also against Zlatan or Cavani. We don’t have time to procrastinate in this context and we are growing at breakneck speed. The problem is that I started with a blank year (in 2014-2015), with a shoulder injury.
In 2016, you were not retained by PSG, and you arrived in Reims, then in Ligue 2, but without a professional contract…
In Reims, I didn’t have the slightest chance to play in Ligue 2 and perhaps I didn’t do everything to get one. I don’t know if I was ready. It was a big blow because afterward, I had to return to the amateur world. I almost had to start from scratch.
In fact, when you joined Herbiers (National) in 2017, were you considering something other than football on a professional level?
The first year, the one where the club went to the final of the Coupe de France against PSG (0-2), I made the bench in the league but not in the Cup, where I was number three. I established myself from the second year in N2. At the very beginning, I was 100% on football, then very quickly I trained in real estate. During the Covid-19 period, I couldn’t see myself doing nothing so I became a real estate agent. I wasn’t too bad, I sold two houses in six months (laughs).
Have you ever thought that your career would never take off, despite a first professional contract at the age of 24 in Niort (Ligue 2)?
I always believed that it would work out in my favor, perhaps naively sometimes. In Niort (from 2021 to 2023), I lacked playing time, so I went to the reserve team in N3, and I ended up playing five L2 matches. I showed a lot of resilience and then things opened up with VA. I’m 27 so I don’t think I’m old yet, and I hope this is the start of something for me, finally.
How do you explain this paradoxical VA season, with this 20th place in Ligue 2, but also this great adventure in the Coupe de France?
That’s a good question, and it’s complicated to answer. In the Cup, it often came down to not much, like in Mulhouse and Rouen, where we went to penalties. But it smiled on us. We perhaps took the matches differently in the Cup, which explains our success. But we don’t cheat in the championship, we are all involved. It’s just that we can’t make it go our way. Afterwards, we faced only one Ligue 2, and no Ligue 1 until then in the Coupe de France, so we must recognize that the draw was quite lenient for us.
You personally burst the screen during the quarter-final in Rouen (1-1, 3-5). While French football often speaks of a “lottery”, to what extent had you prepared for this penalty shootout exercise in which you were decisive?
We know the habits of penalty takers against all teams, in the Coupe de France, but not only that. The video analyst and the goalkeeper coach give us a summary of the gestures of all the players, where they like to shoot… It’s not our secret, all the clubs do that. Depending on the shooter, the history can be important, so it gives some information. We have small codes in Valenciennes, and we see that Rouen goalkeeper Léonard Aggoune had notes written on his bottle.
Precisely, seeing you throw your famous bottle in the middle of a penalty shootout was the unusual strong image of the outcome of this Rouen-VA…
You should know that Leonard and I adore each other, we spent two years together at PSG. But there was a Cup semi-final at the end. And then the bottle came back to him twice, thanks to a ball boy and supporters. It goes to show that I wasn’t good at this one (smile). It might have been funny but in the end, it didn’t even help.
How does it feel to know that OL coach Pierre Sage thinks that Lyon had the “worst draw”? He would really have preferred to face PSG at the Parc des Princes in the half, do you think?
OL will have more pressure than us, and a lot more to lose, that’s undeniable. Especially given their season, if the Lyonnais want to make it to Europe, I think it will go through the Coupe de France. But to talk about the worst possible draw… I don’t believe it at all, it’s just nonsense. It’s a very good draw for them, and whether it’s PSG or Rennes, everyone would have liked to come up against us, especially at home.
Do you have a better chance of remaining in Ligue 2, with your 18 points behind the first non-relegation team, or of lifting the 2024 Coupe de France?
The probabilities are very low on both counts but we are competitors. If we think it’s dead, we might as well not go into the field.
Finally, how do you feel about taking part in the most prestigious match of your career, the first against a Ligue 1 team?
You’re right, I hadn’t yet realized that I had never faced a Ligue 1 in an official match. It’s just fun to play in such a stadium, announced to be sold out (around 57,000 spectators). We play high-level sport to play this kind of pressure match. Now that we’re here, it’s mostly fucking luck. It’s up to us to make the most of it, trying to get through. And so much the better that there is this parenthesis in the Coupe de France to bring a little happiness and comfort to our supporters who deserve it.