The scene is distressing. We play the last seconds of a sad Lille-Metz (0-0) Friday evening when the benches of the two teams begin to warm up and provoke each other. In a tense end to the match where Mr. Dechepy, an uninspired referee on Friday, has just expelled Lille’s Zhergova, Northerners and Lorrainers are on edge.
Down on the edge of the field for the last seconds of the match, Sylvain Armand, sports coordinator of Losc, exchanges sweet words with Frederic Antonetti. Ulcerated, the Messin coach then throws himself on the Lille leader and blows are exchanged. An unlikely, surreal scene which obviously provoked the expulsion of the Metz technician who came to give his version of the facts at a press conference after the match.
“He speaks badly to me. I’m 60 years old and I don’t want people talking badly to me.
Tense and very reassembled, the technician first pointed the finger at the attitude of Olivier Létang, the president of Lille and Sylvain Armand, sports coordinator of Losc, who came to experience the end of the match at the edge of the field.
“Do you believe that the president of Lille and his deputy should be two meters from me in my area and put pressure on the fourth referee? They have nothing to do in my area. It’s not up to me to clean up. You want me to let it go and we lose the game on pressure? I pushed him away. He talks badly to me, I’m 60 years old and I don’t want people to talk badly to me. Surely I’m making the mistake. But do you find it normal that the president of Lille is there? Should he be there? I know the song but I know I’m basically right. The rest, I don’t care.”
Launched like never before in a mythical sequence, the technician mixes everything up and also attacks the journalists guilty, according to him, of having given him a bad reputation for ages.
“I know it, I am not loved. It’s not serious “
“You are accomplices. You are not a prosecutor. There’s a scuffle behind me, should I stay calm and play the redneck on duty? You like BCBG. I am not a preppy and I never will be. When someone attacks me, I reply, You don’t like guys in France who have temperament. I know it, I am not loved. It’s not serious “.
End of the legendary sequence. Antonetti gets up and leaves the room without waiting for any further questions. A masterful exit after a gesture which should cost him dearly in the disciplinary committee. If the Messin coach assumes, not sure that the image of Ligue 1 will be enhanced. But that should probably give him a nice leg in asserted anti-BCBG.