France Blue: Nicolas, we left you last season with the under-19s and a season punctuated by a final in the Gambardella Cup. This year, you will coach the club reserve while taking on your duties as director of training?
Nicolas Seube : After Fabrice left for Olympique de Marseille, a solution had to be found. We found it internally so I challenged myself to be able to take on this working group and manage the competition in National 2 during the weekend. And Romain Leroux, my assistant last season on the U19s, will be in charge of the national U19s.
France Blue: With this particularity that you will not have an assistant?
Nicholas Seube: So no technical assistant. But I still have Emmanuel Lepresle (physical trainer). And then Sébastien Maté (goalkeeper coach) joined us this year on the reserve team staff. That’s still three people counting me but there is no technical assistant as there have been in recent seasons, yes.
France Blue : This departure of Fabrice Vandeputte was a somewhat sudden departure. Was the time for reflection short to meet this challenge?
Nicholas Seube: It happened fairly quickly from the moment Fabrice called me. So, with the president, we agreed on this challenge. We also face the financial difficulties that the club has experienced in recent years. So it was also the idea of being able to work with a few fewer people, to be able to wear two hats. This was already the case last year, it’s going in that direction. In the future, maybe things will change if the club is better equipped financially. But today, as we speak, this is the choice we made internally.
France Blue: Efforts were required in relation to training?
Nicholas Seube: Yes quite. Today, we are touring with eight educators. Over the week, we had already anticipated how to work and have at least four educators on each working group to better develop the boys. On the Weekend, he inevitably asked himself the question of how we were going to do it. We therefore found a solution internally that seems viable to me, that is to say that Romain will also be with Julien Lecoq (physical preparation) on the weekend. Mathieu (Ballon, the U17 coach) will be with Julien Savigny (U16 coach) who has also joined us. We will be at least two to three each time for all the teams.
France Blue: The reserve plays in National 2, the highest level where it can evolve. Staying there is always a feat. We have the impression that this season, the challenge will be even more complicated?
Nicholas Seube: What we achieved at the club last season, staying with very young players was already a feat. This year, the workforce is also young, with a little experience on the 2004 players in particular, but otherwise with very little experience at this level. So if there is maintenance again this year, with five or six more runs, it will be more than a feat.
France Blue: It will have to do with?
Nicolas Seube : We must make do. This is also not the long-term objective. The long-term objective is to be able to continue to develop the player and to be able to allow him to climb the ladder, progress and reach a higher level tomorrow which will allow him, I hope for him to be able to integrate the professional group. This is the objective of the reserve team. Of course, results and competition are an integral part of training and you have to be able to withstand what they are going to face. We made the choice to play young in all categories to confront the boys with difficulty. This choice today is rather paying off by the fact that there are players who have joined the professional group. So the ranking doesn’t matter. The idea is to be able to compete with teams of this level.
France Blue: This National 2 championship is a fairly high championship with Granville, Vannes and teams at the limit of the National?
Nicolas Seube : But it is a very tough championship due to the reforms of the championships. All clubs are capable of descending or ascending. It’s going to be war every weekend. We are not going to lie to each other and necessarily today the National 2 is a championship where the clubs are structured, where the clubs have the financial means, where the clubs put things in place so that the players train every day. It is no longer the CFA of ten or fifteen years ago when there were perhaps fewer sessions and it was perhaps less professional. We are getting closer to the professional level and it must also be admitted, I think that there are at least 90 to 100% of club players who have gone through a training center today. I believe it is a reality. So they are still very high level football players but they certainly lacked something to go to the next level. So these are very tough championships.
France Blue: What are the main difficulties for your young team? In the physical challenge? In game maturity? Lack of experience?
Nicolas Seube : It’s a mixture of all that: the boy’s inexperience, the maturity of course, the level’s inexperience, the man-to-man balance of power… All of that is a challenge to be met and we’re going to work all week to be able to develop the boy. Now, you can’t ask a 17-year-old boy to mature when most players do at 22 or 23. Yes, we will have a physical deficit, but I hope that the mental side will take precedence over that and that we will be able to do coherent things in any case. That we can compete would be the greatest of challenges. Being able to compete in all matches would already be very good.
France Blue: The first pitfall will be Vannes, this Saturday, at home?
Nicholas Seube: Last year, I remember discussing it with Fabrice. Vannes was already a very good team which did not, I think, achieve the championship it was hoping for. But it’s still a club that still played in D2 a short time ago. It remains a structured club, with means and quality players. So yes, he is already a strong opponent from the first day.
France Blue: It’s a big challenge for you and it adds complexity to your tasks. You are already director of the training center, but coaching the reserve could not refuse?
Nicholas Seube: What cannot be refused – and I wanted it anyway after having already exchanged last year with the president – is that I also wanted to stay on the ground.
Even if I have the double task, I had the will to stay on the ground, regardless of the category with which I had to confront myself. I did the young people, I did the less young people, I had done a little reserve with Fabrice as assistant. The senior world also attracted me. I wanted to see what this world was made of, even if it’s a young workforce. I stay with young people in a senior world. But the personal challenge is to continue to improve the players with my technical team. The personal challenge is there and so much the better if we have positive results. But I will be the happiest when we have released players capable of existing in the professional world. My main objective is there.