What is the UNFP Football Club, the team made up of players without a club?

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AJ Auxerre faces, Wednesday July 20, the selection of the UNFP for a friendly match at the Lucien-Masson stadium, in Migennes in the Yonne. A rather special opponent, who brings together this summer for his internship no less than 26 unemployed professional players.

In 2020, the internship had not taken place because of the epidemic. This year, gathered in Essonne on the Leonard de Vinci space in Lisses, the group has already taken part in four preparation matches.

Coached by Patrick Baumelle (former coach of the Ivory Coast) and David Recorbet, the UNFP Football Club was born in 1990. It was born from a request from players without a contract to be able to train with professional facilities, while benefiting from visibility with clubs and recruiters.

The team offers a plurality of profiles. There are experienced internationals, like the 34-year-old Togolese, Matthieu Dossevi, a former Le Mans, Valenciennes and Toulouse player. At his side, Ligue 1 adventurers, like Laurent Dos Santos, former captain of Valenciennes with whom he played 145 games.

There are also young promises, like Arthur Pontet, Alexis Martial and Nomé Sommer, 21 years old each. Or players who return to France after long experiences abroad, like Nicolas Rajsel who played a season with the reserve of Paris Saint-Germain in 2012-2013 before traveling to Slovenia, Belgium and Azerbaijan.

Since its creation, the internship has been fully supported by the UNational Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP). Moreover, to participate, only one condition must be met: “You have to be a member of the union” explains to franceinfo: sport Pascal Bollini, the director of the course. “We send out a pre-registration form to the players two months before the end of the championship to inform them of the course. Then, it is the first registrants who have priority, regardless of nationality. First come, first served? “We also have to do according to needs, manage the balance of the team. We make sure to have 4 goalkeepers and 2 players for each position.”

It must be said that the team considers itself a real professional club. It is therefore impossible to expand the workforce. “We want everyone to play at least one half of the seven warm-up matches.” To make play, it is the first interest of the training course. “The objective is to give players as many chances as possible, to offer them more benchmarks and certainties so that they are ready to start.” You have to allow them to stay physically fit, and that’s the point of having a full staff of ten members.

The second objective is to promote the visibility of players. “We want to highlight them” explains Pascal Bollini who, by valuing his players, is actively working to no longer have a job. And obviously it works. One of the reasons for the “poor results” of the team is that they lose players during training. “We already have Baptiste Aloé who has gone to Nancy”. The 27-year-old defender trained at OM joined ASNL on Saturday. “I’m losing defenders, Laurent Dos Santos should also sign with a club even if I can’t say which one yet… There was even a year when I didn’t have a striker. I had to place attacking midfielders in the lead.

Rekindling the flame is also the objective of this course which often sees idle players treading the pitch. “What drives them is the field, the group, discussing, exchanging, sleeping…” Pascal Bollini finds it difficult to understand players without a club who stay at home during their period of inactivity. This is the vocation of the course, which however remains the tree that hides the forest of hundreds of unemployed players. “We want to win!” exclaims Pascal Bolini. In the meantime, let’s play, the only way out of the rut. “They are competitors, for them as for us, the ideal is to have a good match, it’s victory!”


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