The Lyonnaise could win their ninth Champions League on Saturday against Barcelona.
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You had to see her, trophy in hand, celebrating this 17th championship won, as if it were the first. “We never get tired of it” she smiled in the mixed zone after the match. In the play-off final against Paris Saint-Germain, Friday May 17, Wendie Renard, 33 years, added a new title to his already well-stocked list of achievements. Seventeen to which are added ten French Cups and eight Champions League, before a possible ninth, Saturday May 25 after the final against FC Barcelona to Bilbao. But nothing dampens his desire to pile up more and more trophies. “When you win one, it’s like when you start to eatshe said. Sometimes we’re not hungry, and then we start to taste it and we say to ourselves that it’s good. We want to finish the plate.”
There are signs that are unmistakable. Her former coach at Olympique Lyonnais (2010-2014), Patrice Lair, remembers having noticed them quite quickly while observing the player one evening during the Champions League, two years before taking office. The Lyonnaises then cross paths with Umea IK, Swedish club. “She had made a little mistake against Marta, he emphasizes. We already felt enormous potential and great motivation. And there was this error which, I would say, perhaps upset him a little, we felt it a little later.”
She draws her inspiration from her love of football. Her former teammate at Lyon and with Les Bleues, Corine Petit, witnessed it. “I loved acting, but I didn’t watch 50 matches per week like Wendie can do. She lives through football and for football. All these little details, maybe that adds something extra.” The little details, those of the “invisible preparation”insists Corine Petit, her way of focusing on her nutrition or her sleep, for example.
“She’s been like that since she was little, she obviously has hobbies and her family is important to her, but she pays attention to everything to be in the best conditions to recover physically. That’s also what makes her strong.”
Corine Petit, former Olympique Lyonnais playerfranceinfo: sport
“She is surely one of the greatest professionals I have ever known, both off and on the field,” agrees his former coach. An observation shared by his adversaries – like Julie Peruzzetto, who wore the jersey of Toulouse and Saint-Etienne for a long time in D1. “She has a lot of demands and rigor”recalls the former offensive player, who often found herself with Wendie Renard in marking.
Julie Peruzzetto also remembers a respected captain, who mobilized her team on the field. “Where she is very strong, and what she cultivates, is her mental strength. She is capable, when we are at a weak moment for the team, of turning things around with this mental power that she Get out She’ll hit one, two or three. players who will be able to score.” In the eyes of Corine Petit, Wendie Renard has “an important word and often very accurate words”, in club or selection.
This is one of the reasons why Patrice Lair did not hesitate for very long when appointing a new captain after the departure of Sonia Bompastor (in 2013), current coach of this Olympique Lyonnais. “When I put Wendie as captain, Philippe Bergeroo, who was coach of the France team, called me and asked me who would I put as captain of the Bleuesremembers Patrice Lair. I told him : ‘That’s it, we have to put Wendie. She is the one who will lead the team to success.'”
Julie Peruzzetto sums it up like this : “For me, it represents the DNA of Lyon : the grinta, this culture of winning”. A philosophy instilled in an entire collective, which mixes with the player’s own ambition. “It’s such a joy to win… We know what it’s like to turn around after a lost final and look at the others with the fireworks and the Cup risingevokes Corine Petit. When we have experienced both… we always want to seek more.”
Wendie Renard managed to maintain this strength of character in more complex moments. The defeats in the selection, the injuries – the Lyonnaise was sidelined from the field for three months at the start of the year, thus missing the Final Four (final square) of the League of Nations – or his temporary loss of the armband in the French team under the mandate of Corinne Diacre.
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In these moments, she can count on those close to her. “She lost her father young [elle avait 8 ans]she came to mainland France [de Martinique] to make a career… I think she doesn’t want all this to endrecalls Patrice Lair. She has these mental resources, with her loved ones and the people around her. She finds this strength because she knows where she comes from and she doesn’t want to give up. She deserves everything that happens to her, she went for it.” In his sights, there is necessarily this new Champions League to win against Barcelona. And, then, in the process, the possibility of an Olympic title, this summer at home, with the Blues.