Worried after the first games, yes, but not necessarily for the rest of the season. Goalkeeper of ASSE between 1997 and 2001, with seasons in the first and second division, Jérôme Alonzo gives us his analysis of these Greens he still loves.
France Bleu Saint-Étienne Loire: Jérôme, what is your opinion on this start to the season for ASSE in Ligue 2?
Jérôme Alonzo: First of all, I look at this start to the season with nostalgia. Having known the D2 with Saint-Étienne, it brings back memories. I know how tough this championship is, with enormous demands, as great as in the elite, except that when your name is Saint-Étienne in Ligue 2, everyone wants your skin. You’re a scarecrow with a start weighed down by penalty points. So I follow ASSE with always a lot of love, but also with a lot of concern. I am not convinced that this season will be the right one for a comeback.
Is this concern you feel linked to the first results or to the overall context around ASSE?
This worry is normal given the situation. The only thing that reassures me today at ASSE is Laurent Batlles. I know his capacities and his power to federate a project in the medium term. In the short term, on the other hand, it seems complicated to me. Obviously I’m worried about an immediate comeback, but we all know very well that a comeback in Ligue 1 is not a one-season project. This project takes time and you have to be aware of it.
The elite and Ligue 2 (D2, at the time), you knew them with ASSE. What is the difficulty when you leave the elite to return to your antechamber?
It’s hell. You just have to look at the time it took Auxerre to come back up to realize this. Getting back into the elite requires a lot of patience, with a coach capable of carrying out a project. At this level, I am not worried with Laurent Batlles, someone for whom I have immense respect. Afterwards, it’s Saint-Étienne. When you know this club well, you know that nothing is easy there. Everything is more complicated there than elsewhere, and it was the same in my time.
A complicated start to the season in Division 2, you experienced one too, at ASSE, it was during the 97-98 season. You had only won your first match on the 13th day…
(he cuts) And I remember this victory very well, it was against Caen. The season we almost went down. But I want to give you a more reassuring example. The following season (98-99), that of the rise, we started with four draws. Not great, but we were hanging on, we weren’t losing and we were a pain to play. Robert Nouzaret (the trainer) had put a spider’s web in place and it was taking time to develop. Players we weren’t expecting then arrived, like Bertrand Fayolle and Adrien Ponsard, and the miracle happened. All that to say that a recovery project is not done in a few days. Once again, when you play in Ligue 2 in Saint-Étienne, you are expected everywhere, on all grounds. You are the attraction, the great circus that moves (without being pejorative with the term circus) and that everyone wants to see. No matter the results, you remain the favorite. What ASSE players need to understand is that in Ligue 2, you have a target behind your back and you will have it all season.
Going back to the current team, is it a message of patience that you would like to send today to the supporters?
I read all the interviews given by Laurent Batlles and he is right. You have to understand, and you have to hammer it home, that ASSE’s situation is so special that you shouldn’t be in a hurry. If a climb happens, so much the better and I sign with both hands, but you shouldn’t ask the players to come back up this year. I know Ligue 2 too well, and for a recovery project, it takes between two and four years. People who don’t know anything about it will tell you “wait, Saint-Étienne has to go up right away”, but not at all. You have to be patient, have clear ideas, a coach who stays the course in the storm and then we can get there.