When we meet Suzana Garcia in west London, between Shepherd’s Bush and Nothing Hill, she carefully keeps in her bag a red lanyard and the badge on which appears her name, attached to one of the most prestigious logos of the English football: Arsenal FC.
Suzana Garcia is a scout for Arsenal. “It means recruiter. The club offered to open a position for me to become, for the first time in the club’s history, a recruiter within the training center“, she explains to franceinfo. But how, from a football fan in Lognes, in Seine-et-Marne, did this 29-year-old woman become an employee of one of the most emblematic clubs in the English Premier League? We tells you about his journey.
Suzana Garcia grew up in Lognes, a town in Seine-et-Marne with just under 15,000 inhabitants. She discovered football there thanks to her big brother. “He played in Portugal, I have a family background of footballers. Football is my life.” she sums up to franceinfo. “But at the time, there was no women’s section in my town.“She then decided to create it.
“The structures were poorly developed, they were almost non-existent. For me, it was important that girls could play football.”
Suzana Garcia, scout for Arsenalat franceinfo
“I didn’t have that chance at the time, I only played handball when I really wanted to play football. But there was no club nearby, and my mother couldn’t take me “, she remembers.
Creating this women’s team is also the way for her to fill a gap. “It was really taboo in the 2000s to play football for womenshe remembers. We didn’t have a lot of representation in women’s football at that time, so it was a little complicated to convince your parents to play football and I think that’s why it was my project. life.“
While studying in Nice, “Coach Zana” coaches the women’s youth teams at OGC Nice. Seine-et-Marnaise touches its dream of working in professional football: “HAS This time, my typical weeks are: I go to work, I go to school, I go to football, I go to see the matches. It was my whole life. But I had to go back to Paris.“
The reason? “The South is a place that is quite frequented by the extreme right and at that time, I didn’t have the confidence to stay. It was very complicated because minorities were very poorly represented in the club“, she judges.
After trying to pass various competitions at the Paris Amateur Football League, without success, the click came during a Champions League match, in 2019, between Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain. “I was in the Parisian parking lot and I saw that there were women on the Manchester staff. This really touched meshe remembers. It was a strong message for me. In France, black women in coaching or in technical staff are not represented at all. It made me want to try my luck.“
She first went to London for a year, as an au pair, to immerse herself in English culture. An experience that he really likes. One of his friends informed him of a program launched by the Arsenal club. THE Arsenal Community Coach Development Program. She applied and, a few months later, the verdict fell: Suzana Garcia was selected. “When I got the answer, I called my mother, my loved ones, and I cried. It’s something big, for me who comes from 77, to have an opportunity at Arsenal.“
Suzana Garcia learns quickly and well, she obtains her certificate and the club even offers her the opportunity to become a “scout”, a recruiter for Gunners. This is the first time that the club has offered this position to a woman. Suzana Garia finds herself in charge of west London, for boys aged 12 to 15, then for girls. “I think I was legitimate because I really had coaching experience as well. I was still coming out of a year and a half, or even two years, of training within the Foundation.“
With a very specific role: “I recruit within the Academy, the training center. My job consists of supervising players, going out to find players, talents of tomorrow – fingers crossed (laughs). I travel the pitches every weekend in London, looking for players who would potentially have the level to become a footballer, to join the academy of the training center.”
Suzana Garcia carries out comprehensive reports on young players and then submits them to her superiors. “I see, depending on the profile of the players, how they can adapt within the training center. Then it’s a collective, collegial reflection.“With two possibilities: recruit the youngster in the making or let him develop in his structure while continuing to keep an eye on him. For the moment, the players that she has “scouted” are still too young to appear in the professional group, but within five to ten years, Suzana Garcia will have before her the concrete result of her recruitment, with perhaps one or more elements who will evolve within the first team.
The first woman to occupy this position at Arsenal, Suzana Garcia realized this historic significance when she was on maternity leave. “On my return, we had a meeting where I was informed that thanks to my work, to my daily fight for three years so that there are more women within the training center, but also generally within from the club, four women were recruited.”
And added with a tear on his cheek: “It’s a source of pride to say that I’ve come a long way; I’ve been in the football world for ten years. But I always have to prove myself, it’s hard.”
“Some ‘little ones’ take me as an example. They could have had other paths, they could have fallen into worse things and they tell me via social networks that, thanks to me, they don’t do stupid things.”
Suzana Garciaat franceinfo
“I’m going to be like you, you are an example for me”these are the kinds of messages she receives via her networks. “This is what makes me the most proud. I opened up the field of possibilities for the women who have just arrived behind me”she says.
“Coach Zana”a big PSG fan, has set other goals, high ones of course. “My dream would be to have a position of high responsibility, to be part of the first team of a football club.“