The DFCO is sinking. The negative streak now rises to eight games in a row without winning, after the 2-1 defeat
at the last of the Ligue 2 championship, Niort, Saturday October 22, 2022. Dijon thought to hold its victory, before taking a red card, then collapsing in the last minutes. Midfielder Lucas Deaux, who was living his first start of the season at Stade René-Gaillard, made things clear after the match: the problem is in people’s minds.
Lucas, the disappointments repeat themselves…
We can’t deny the obvious, it’s been eight games. We don’t win, we lose at the last one while we are leading. The finding is alarming. I don’t know if everyone’s awareness is made, in any case, for me, it’s sure that it’s a negative answer.
We talked a lot, the president talked, the coach talked, we talked among players. At some point, when we arrive on a football field, it’s no use talking anymore, actions are needed. And unfortunately they are not there, or intermittently.
How to explain this end of the match, where you take two goals in a few minutes while you were leading?
It’s mentally, it’s a state of mind. I don’t think we have a group, in all honesty, with a mindset of champions, competitors. “Champion” doesn’t mean being the best team in France, but it means having a high morale. Get up every morning and have one thing in mind: do the maximum and put all the necessary ingredients for success at the highest level. Having no regrets, after training, after a match, after a day, and being able to look at yourself in a mirror.
How do you imagine reversing this series?
If I had the solution… It’s been more than two years, in any case since Dijon has been in Ligue 2, the coaches have succeeded one another, and I don’t think they are bad coaches, quite the contrary. So we have to accept that we, the players, are not up to it and we’re just not good.
You will already need another state of mind and above all agree to tell the truth to yourself and be honest with yourself. I think there are too many people who lie to themselves. It’s hard to talk about, because it can be misinterpreted or taken out of context.
After this series of eight games without winning, does Omar Daf still have the support and confidence of the locker room?
Yes ! In his speech, there’s almost nothing I don’t agree with, and it’s not boot licking. The speech, the ideas, the game plan, the method… I really like it. It’s personal. Behind, it does not follow. It is alarming, it is necessary all the same very very quickly to become aware of the situation.
There are two league games left, and the Cup, that we don’t start making fools with that, if we are on a downward slope and a negative series just before the break (for the World Cup, until December 26, editor’s note)after two months you have that in your brain, and to get up from that, it’s complicated.
The Ligue 2 classification is worrying, the last place is only two points away…
Anyway, it doesn’t take a fortune teller to know that after eight straight games without a win, you’re not in a good situation. There is no individual awarenessto think that we are putting a club in danger – because it is true, we are putting an institution in danger.
We have a president and a technical team who put everything in place to put the players in the best possible position. And we have to be able to tell ourselves that we are not giving them back their own coin, that we are very bad at the moment. I find that the shoe pinches at the level of the mentality, the state of mind.
I can’t understand why we don’t get up every morning to want to knock everything out. It’s a great job, we are lucky to have a job that is our passion, not everyone can say that. We also see that the current situation is precarious for many people, and I find that… (He blows) in fact, we don’t give a damn! I’m very alarmist, I don’t know if everyone has that feeling but, if they don’t have it, they will soon have to look at each other in a mirror.