It’s time for a truce for DFCO footballers, 16th in Ligue 2, due to the World Cup. The opportunity to take an interest in the next generation, in the other teams of the club. Monday, November 14, 2022, Stéphane Roche, new director
of the training center, since July 2022, was the guest of France Bleu Bourgogne in 100% Sports
. On the menu, with the former professional player, training director of Caen and Lyon, and ex-coach of the PSG U19s: his role, his projects for the club and the relationship between training and the professional team.
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What does your role consist of? What does a typical week look like as a training center director?
The beginning of the week is already taking stock of the weekend, with the coaches, the staff (medical, sports) to analyze what has been and what has not been. And see what the training and work axes can be. There is also the management of the workforce, all the activity on the ground, the programming of training, in all categories. Then, all the meetings around the organization of matches, for trips or receptions, and to analyze the daily developments of each other.
You therefore supervise the reserve (N3), the regional U18s, the national U17s, but also the pre-training, from the U15s to the U12s. What is your plan for them?
The first thing when I arrived in Dijon was to put someone at pre-training level. I chose Médy Huguenot, a local boy from Dijon, who trained at ASPTT Dijon. I had met him through matches at the national level, and he had made a very good impression on me. He is someone who knows the requirements of the national level. And how better to prepare our pre-training players than having someone who knows what awaits them in the U17, U19 national and reserve championships?
It is also a desire to bring a strategy of local players, regional, at the end of the training course. Today, out of twenty players in reserve, there are only five who come from Metropolitan France. It’s not enough.
Today, out of twenty players in reserve, there are only five who come from the Metropolis
Gérard Bonneau, the recruitment director of the DFCO, explained a few weeks ago on FBB: “From twelve to fifteen years, for me, you have to take all the best in the sector, in Côte-d’Or and around”. It’s doable ?
It is feasible, from the moment when, around, the young people want to come to the DFCO. Unfortunately, we still have boys who hesitate to come to the DFCO because around them we must not value them enough the chance they can have to come to the professional club of their city, and that’s good shame.
Some clubs set up a philosophy of play and a way of playing common to all teams, sometimes from football school. Would this be desirable at the DFCO?
Not today. At DFCO, my goal is to create players who are able to adapt to different game projects. Because there hasn’t been enough stability over the last few seasons to say: “The DFCO’s style of play is that one”. So it’s to allow young players, who have to join the pro team, to have a quality of possession game, a quality of counter-attack, a game of confrontation… to have a capacity to s ‘adapt.
You declared when you took office: “The DFCO must go a step further, through a training policy that tends towards the very high level”. That is, what do you mean by “very high level”?
Already, it is to be in connection with the coach of the professional team, and that is what has been done. I was lucky to arrive at the same time as Omar Daf. It was to exchange, and to say that training should have a place in the professional group. Him, coming from Sochaux, was stimulated by this possibility.
Of course, for training, you have to have patience. Today, in the very short term, are we able to bring out young players in the professional team? We need a boy who is starting to emerge, who is consistent in his performances, who becomes a driving force in the reserve team, the project is there.
In all the clubs where I had the chance to play, I always had the possibility of having a core of players from the academy who formed at least 30% of the group of the professional team. And that’s perhaps a bit of what’s missing to retain our supporters. It’s important to build this nucleus of players, who should arrive in the years to come to be integrated into the professional group, and bring added value to the team.
This is the criticism that has been leveled at the DFCO for several years. Few club-trained players “break through” with the first team…
It is also necessary that the pro trainer is in adequacy with this speech. That he wants, because getting young people to play is not easy, it is not an all-risk guarantee. From experience, at OL, Samuel Umtiti (world champion in 2018 with France, editor’s note) was very quickly at a very good level, but he was still making one or two errors per game.
It’s really to build this core of players who have this will, who are good at Dijon, who want to make the club shine, to wear the shirt loud and clear, what we could call the club’s DNA.
Can you tell us about the process for a player from the formation to “go up” to train with the pros?
There are specific needs that professional staff have, a midfielder, a defender, a striker, for the organization of their team. And then, at certain times, it’s: “who deserves the most?”. So on merit and according to the needs at the moment T of the first team.
When the results do not come, and this is the case at the moment at the DFCO, we often hear: “but we have to get the young people to play!”. Why is it not so simple?
Young people must be prepared in advance, be in the training group, know the partners of the professional team. So you already have to train a little more regularly, to then apply to be on the bench, to be able to return.
There are great stories in certain clubs, of certain players, not at all prepared, who, on their first appearance, succeeded. But generally, behind, it falls quickly. The goal is to prepare little by little. Today, there is no room, the number of pros is dense and substantial.
The proof, the young pros trained at the club (Chahid, Benchaa) play very little…
Yanis Chahid had made a very good preparation, in the friendlies. He is a boy, I think, who would have had playing time. Unfortunately, on his first game with the reserve team, he received a red card and three games of suspension. He got into trouble, Omar couldn’t count on him, it slowed down the dynamic which he was on.