All sports enthusiasts have a few, which they cherish like Proust’s Madeleines, with words and a tone of voice that warm the long winter evenings. We’re talking about these rare moments of perfect communion between a legendary action and a comment that magnifies it, those that make a place immediately in our heads and forever. With the alluring sequence of Champions League – Roland-Garros – Euro – Tour de France – Olympics awaiting us in the coming weeks, the door is wide open for everyone to add to their personal collection. Small anthology, not exhaustive and very debatable:
- “Come on my little guy… yesssssssssssssssss,” from Thierry Roland to Luis Fernandez during the quarter-final of the 1986 France-Brazil World Cup
- “The express, the TGV is gone”, by Patrick Montel during Usain Bolt’s 100m world record in Berlin in 2009
- “Christophe Dominici took the ball! Essay ! Essay by Christophe Dominici”, by Christian Jeanpierre during the semi-final of the 1999 France-New Zealand Rugby World Cup
- “The light came from Laurent Blanc”, by Thierry Gilardi during the round of 16 of the 1998 France-Paraguay World Cup
- “Accelerate, accelerate, yesss he’s going to get her” by Julien Fébreau during Pierre Gasly’s victory at the Italian GP in 2020
- “Second post Pavaaaaaaaaaaaaard”, by Grégoire Margotton during the round of 16 of the 2018 France-Argentina World Cup
- “The king in the country of the Belgians is him, he is an immense champion, a lord… Enter here Julian, in the Pantheon of the greatest runners in history”, by Alexandre Pasteur during the second world champion title of Alaphilippe in 2021
These pieces of French sports history have entered, to varying degrees, into the collective memory. If some are a little dated, appropriation by the masses has especially accelerated from the 2000s, with social networks as a sounding board. The explosion in the number of competitions broadcast, and therefore of comments, also increases the probability of coming across one of these snapshots. With a pitfall to avoid, that of seeking your moment of glory at all costs.
Canal+ launches its football “The Voice”
“A commentator, most of what he says will not leave any particular trace, these are ordinary moments, which must be accompanied,” says Hervé Mathoux, one of the great voices of football on Canal+. And then comes the story moment. And there, you either take it or you miss it. If you miss it, it’s stupid because you’re not sure if it comes back for ten years, fifteen years, or sometimes it never even comes back. »
The encrypted channel is recognized as a formidable school of commentators, where Thierry Gilardi, Grégoire Margotton and Christophe Josse have passed. Big news, she has decided to stage the recruitment of her next voice in a show called “Au micro”, broadcast from this Wednesday. For nine episodes, candidates from all backgrounds will compete in different tests. The winner will land a contract to join the editorial team for next season, where Canal, broadcaster of the new XXL version of the Champions League, will really need workers.
This new format, like “The Voice” of football, highlights a certain starification of the profession. Well, it depends on which way you take it. Because this is a paradox of our time, commentators have never been so drowned in the crowd, and at the same time can stand out from the crowd in record time. “This arrival of the phrase that makes the difference is quite recent,” notes Mathoux. But that’s normal, before there were only a handful of commentators. When there was then an exponential number of channels and competitions, the best felt the need to stand out. »
The trap of the short phrase
This is where you need to be careful. There is a fine line, sometimes, between expressing your style and overdoing it. Finding a special place in the ears of the nation is not given to everyone. “It’s a trap,” continues the journalist, who as a member of the “Au Micro” jury took care to warn the candidates. If you’re looking for the little phrase, there’s the risk of coming out with it at a moment that doesn’t have enough dimension to hold it, or of forcing it a little, and then it will sound false. But for that, there are no rules, no predefined ingredients. It’s feeling, and talent. »
In the industry, everyone has their own faces, their names of colleagues who are a little too busy forcing destiny. “Some people prepare punchlines in advance, I find that lamentable,” judges Alexandre Pasteur, the man who has piloted the Tour de France on France Télévisions since 2017. Because precisely, sports commentary is instantaneous, emotion, not pre-prepared sentences. Those who will go down in history cannot be worked on. It’s up to everyone to express themselves with their words, their sensitivity. »
We might believe the younger generation is more concerned by this quest. This is not the opinion of the former Eurosport employee (53 years old):
“ On the contrary, I find that it is a time gone by. I am part of a service where there were star commentators, stars, very well identified. They have retired and I find that there is no longer a cult of personality. Today we start from the principle that no one is irreplaceable and that events do not belong to us. » »
This is the basic rule, the very essence of the profession: never want to be bigger than the competition you are commenting on. “Being a prisoner of your character, caricaturing yourself on the air, that’s definitely not the case! », professes Pasteur.
“I think more of the athletes than of posterity”
The tendency would therefore be more towards humility, cultivated by the awareness that in mirror of the hypothetical moment of glory, there is the one, unfortunately less uncertain, where the kings of the microphone take the sauce in a few minutes on the networks at cause of an error or a wrong sentence. An element that marked Charles Thiallier when he met, with his co-author Jérémy Sahakian, twenty major figures in the profession for the writing of the book Secrets of sports commentators : “They can be seen as stars, but they are all very modest about what they do, and know that they have all said stupid things on the air. They are super honest on this point. Stéphane Guy, for example, admits that “it’s not Gijon, it’s not Valladolid” is one of his biggest mistakes. So the boulard side, really not. »
This is also what emerges from the speech of Anne-Sophie Bernadi, the voice of biathlon on the L’Equipe channel since 2017, quicker to mention her “fear of commenting badly” than her exploits. “The stars are the athletes. I think more of them than of posterity,” assures the thirty-year-old, precisely because she is aware that the comments remain. She says she was struck by a video retracing the great moments of Martin Fourcade’s career, on which we found the voice of Guillaume Claret almost every time. “It links the athlete and the journalist,” she believes. I always told myself that I had to live up to that. »
Notes first, emotion later
Like her colleagues, she prepares a lot more stats than short sentences. A way to reassure yourself, to then allow yourself to “let yourself be overwhelmed by emotions” when, for example, the Bleues’ quadruplet in the sprint during the last World Cups comes.
This is the main lesson learned by Arnaud, protagonist of the first episode of the Canal+ show this Wednesday. “I realized that the important thing was to have a huge base of work behind you to build on and then be able to experience it 100%,” says the 28-year-old about his experience. The best commentators are because they have very detailed knowledge, because they have prepared things that we do not necessarily hear on the air, because they can have this freedom which will make the difference in the good time. » The comment that remains imprinted in memories may contain an element of luck, but it never falls from the sky.