This Saturday, September 17, the French futsal team will play a preparation match against Croatia at Espace Mayenne in Laval. it will be a first. The choice of Espace Mayenne owes nothing to chance: a brand new room, an audience of connoisseurs and a proximity to Paris. Almost obvious for Philippe Lafrique, the head of delegation of the French futsal team: “the Laval site perfectly meets the specifications for the services of the French futsal team. We actually needed a room not too far from Paris, a room on a human scale. And then, we also needed a local locomotive, a club with a futsal culture. And this culture may be recent, but it is quite present in Laval.“
Espace Mayenne like the Stade de France?
The France / Croatia match will be sold out. 3300 people will attend this meeting. Two Blues matches are already scheduled (France / Croatia this Saturday then France / Norway on October 8 at Espace Mayenne). And if the test is transformed, the entire qualification campaign for the 2024 World Cup could take place at Espace Mayenne reveals Philippe Lafrique: “what the coach wants in particular is to be able to land on a qualifying campaign on a site so that the players have benchmarks. So it’s an objective to be in residence on this room to have our habits and not change each time. It is important. These are details that count in a qualification.“There is the Stade de France for the footballers of the French team. There could be Espace Mayenne for the futsaleurs of the French team.
With Etoile Lavalloise which plays in D1, there is a real dynamic around futsal in Laval believes the coach of the France team, Raphaël Reynaud: “we need to find an audience, an audience of connoisseurs. We want the moment that we are going to experience on Saturday to be the meeting of a team with its public. The answer to the question of whether we will play all our matches in Laval, we will certainly have it at the final whistle. For us, everything is in place from an organizational point of view. We are not very far from Clairefontaine (78) where we train. Everything is in place so that we can be there for a certain number of matches.“
Having your habits in a room is a huge plus for players. It only remains for mayonnaise to take Saturday at Espace Mayenne between the Blues and the Mayenne public.