Former player and coach recounts his passion for football in his book “Free, 50 years of football” published by Solar editions. An exciting and touching story that all lovers of the game must get. Guest of 100% Girondins, he mentioned in particular the Girondins de Bordeaux, his stay in England but also some exchanges with Christophe Urios.
France Bleu Gironde: You are a native of Castres, your father played rugby, you could have followed him in this discipline. With these origins do you keep an eye on rugby?
Claude Puel: I follow all sports, a lot of sports, I am passionate. Of course, I am Castres Olympique and even if they are rivals, Toulouse, because I like the expression they put into rugby. And then I also follow the Union Bègles-Bordeaux closely because I communicate from time to time with its coach who went through Castres. Some of his staff came to see me in Leicester to see how we worked in football. And it is true that we sympathized. And then, from time to time, we send each other a little message of encouragement.
Could Claude Puel have come to the Girondins de Bordeaux? Did the question arise one day?
As a coach yes, but not as a player. I consider it a privilege to have played for a single club (Editor’s note: AS Monaco) with the desire to play in the top three places. I had the privilege of playing with huge players in Monaco, so that was nice too. As a coach it was after Nice that I had just left, the president offered to join them (Editor’s note in 2016, the President of the Girondins was Jean-Louis Triaud). Bordeaux has always represented for me a beautiful club, class, which I have always appreciated. But when I left Nice, I was tired, I couldn’t see myself recovering right away. And then if I resumed, I thought of doing it abroad. I left two or three months later for Southampton. But really, I hesitated because I liked its president. I loved the club, what it represented, what it gave off as a story. It really is a nice club. The region is magnificent, the city too. And then the Girondins, that always spoke to me. Sure.
You trained in England, is it different?
First of all, we don’t need, I would say, to encourage the players in one way or another to give everything in training. Already to be very professional, to respect the schedules, to respect a discipline which is natural to them and besides they are the police between them and really there is an enormous intensity in training, they almost have to be slowed down. There is great respect for the coach. They call him the boss. The coach is the boss. And then at the level of the public too, everything is done to respect the players, to respect the management, the staff. The refereeing of the matches is also to be underlined. It is a little permissive, ie it allows fluidity. It allows the game to grow, which is not constantly choppy. Yellow cards, red cards are not released inadvertently. We are dealing with connoisseurs and a lot of professionalism.
Will the Girondins de Bordeaux go back to Ligue 1?
I think yes. First, you need a great start to the championship. We did not expect them at this level. It’s also good because David Guion trusts young shoots and I find that very nice, supervised by slightly more mature players. This is really the right policy for me. Rely in this kind of situation, on the training center especially if there are good players.