The USO footballers were full in training, this Tuesday morning. The group is preparing its next league match which will take place on Saturday night at home, against Lens. And the 5 players of the Algerian selection who had found themselves stranded in Sudan, with their trainer Farid Kebsi, during a coup d’état ten days ago, returned to Orleans Sunday night.
Relieved to be home
They had left Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, last Saturday (October 30) after having been confined for a week in their hotel. They were evacuated by a plane to Algiers, where they made a short stopover before returning to France. These five young women have agreed to look back on what they have experienced.
– Lydie Lahaix
“Me since my return I have a smile, I am super happy to have found my teammates“explains babysitter Chloé N’Gazi.”We really are a tight-knit group and they missed us last week so now i think it gives us an extra trick, we have even more resentment, the desire to play for the team“.
We were safe in this hotel, it was the wait that was long
At her side, midfielder Amira Ould Braham, she also has a smile and she remembers these six days spent in the Sudanese capital. “We were safe, we were at the hotel, there was no danger for us but in the end it was a bit long. Staying locked up is never easy, it was above all the expectation and impatience to tell each other when are we going to return, that was the heaviest thing, but from the moment we arrived in Algeria, we knew that we would quickly return to France“.
Asked if there is any trauma from what they went through, Amira Ould Braham says, “there are traces, yes because these are life experiences but these are not traces that will mark me or prevent me from playing on the field, not at all“.
– Lydie Lahaix
The speech of his players reassures Farid Kebsi. The Orleans coach lived alongside them this military coup, as assistant coach of the Algerian women’s team. “We had a group of 22 girls aged 18 to 25, it was necessary first think of them and be in kindness. We could easily give news to our loved ones and then we had to take care, we organized every day of training sessions with the means available to us at the hotel“explains the coach.
“It was an uncomfortable situation but it allows keep your feet on the ground and to think that we are still lucky when we see what is happening in this country, we put into perspective our little daily worries“adds Farid Kebsi.
This kind of event can strengthen a group
“The players who were there lived together for ten days, 24 hours a day, in conditions of doubt, so it strengthens the bonds. And the players who were here (in Orleans) were necessarily worried about their girlfriends. But there today we go back to work it’s something that is now a thing of the past “ still analyzes the coach.
“Girls can use it perhaps to question themselves about what happens to them in their daily life, you have to use it to move forward. But here we are more riveted on our match next Saturday than on what happened to us. We go find our daily routine and prepare for this match as well as possible“concludes Farid Kebsi.
– Lydie Lahaix
USO-Lens, at La Source stadium, this Saturday, November 6. Match of the 8th day of women’s D2. Kick-off at 6 p.m.