In the small press conference room of La Jonelière, Antoine Kombouaré sketched a smile when a journalist asked him in a humorous tone last Saturday if FC Nantes intended to go to Azerbaijan in a sand yacht, this Thursday to play his second Europa League match against Qarabag. But immediately, the technician resumed a more serious tone to mention this trip “very complicated to organize”. Stuck between two league matches, this trip to the confines of Asia, nearly 6,000 kilometers from the City of the Dukes, was designed to meet both the requirements of UEFA but also those of the Nantes coach concerned about the recovery of his protégés. Explanations.
The issue of transport at the heart of concerns
“There are constraints, such as the press briefing which is mandatory on site, the day before“, details the Kanak. Barring exceptional exemptions from UEFA, press conferences must indeed take place the day before the match and in the host city. The Nantes delegation therefore had to review its habits when it usually arrives at destination 24 hours before the game. It will thus take off at the very beginning of the afternoon, this Tuesdayaccording to information from France Bleu Loire Océan, for a landing scheduled around 10 p.m. in Baku, 8 p.m. in France.
This journey, one of the most distant made by the Yellow House, also forced the club to change planes, the one usually rented for trips in France not having enough fuel to take Alban Lafont’s teammates to Baku d a milking. Thus, and as during its trip to Tel Aviv, last July, where the Trophée des Champions was organized, FC Nantes rented a Boeing 737, with a business configuration, from a private company. Likewise, he was obliged to make visas for all players and obtain a special document for three of them, Moses Simon, Ignatius Ganago and Mostafa Mohamed.
A return to dawn
The stay in the Azerbaijani capital where the second meeting of the group stage will take place, in front of a hundred Nantes supporters, is a first for the eight-time champion of France. The service in charge of organizing this trip therefore relied on the list of hotels pre-selected by Qarabag before discussing with its counterparts from Olympique de Marseille, who had traveled to Baku as a barrage on their way back from Europa League Conference, last February. Before getting in touch with a local service provider in order to reserve the bus for the players, the vans to transport the equipment, and in particular to do scouting at the Republican Tofiq-Behramov stadium.
As for Antoine Kombouaré’s question: “Do we stay there after the match or do we come back immediately because, three days later, we continue with the reception of Lens?“, the boss of the sportsman decided. The fifty people who make up the yellow and green delegation will leave in the wake of the meeting. And everything has been thought out. The plane will leave Heydar Aliyev international airport, in the night, for be able to land in the early morning at Nantes-Atlantique, a platform where a curfew is in effect for commercial flights between midnight and six o’clock. A way to maximize player recovery time who will play 48 hours later an already pivotal match in the league. In short, a race against time.