Maryam is the youngest intruder since this column exists on France Info. At nine months, the midfielder’s baby Lyonnais, Amel Majri landed in Clairefontaine for the week of preparation of the Blue before France-Colombia, Friday. This is the first time that a player from the active French football team has been a mother. And not only does this first baby from Clairefontaine not worry the brand new coach of Les Bleues, Hervé Renard, but he who has had four children is already expecting the next ones.
“She has a nine-month-old baby girl, I think it’s difficult for a very young mother like that to leave her at home and come to participate in an international internship, even if it’s her job.“said the coach during a press conference Monday April 3 at Clairefontaine. “Today, in the biggest world selections, there are a lot of things organized for children, so France is a little behind. We have to get there to be a specialized structure for that, it’s that is to say with a nanny, with a space for the children to have fun. And then maybe who knows, one day we will find ourselves with four or five toddlers … As long as everything is well organized, that no problem.”
The joy of judoka Clarisse Agbégnénou
These words from the coach have filled other sportswomen with happiness who have sometimes had difficulty getting their pregnancies accepted. Witness this tweet from Clarisse Agbégnénou, the judoka: “Dear Hervé Renard, you have no idea of the importance of the stone to the building that you have just brought in this fight which is dear to me!”, she wrote. Further proof that this little Maryam is not usurping her status as an intruder
Maryam is born on July 5, 2022 from an international footballer mother: Amel Majri, 30 years old today, was recruited by the OL training center when she was 14. The midfielder has six Champions Leagues under her belt. active, nine French championship titles and seven French Cups. It’s a little early to know if Maryam will like football, but her father being also in the middle, as well as her aunt, the twin sister of her mother who is a trainer, we wish her.
Obviously, given its short life, we were exceptionally interested in the months preceding the birth. And, even if it may lack a little romance, it took a cruciate ligament rupture in October 2021 for this little one to see the light of day, nine months later. This is what her footballer mother says in a documentary shot this winter by another former player who is now a consultant for Canal +: “I took advantage of my injury and I said to myself: ‘Here, it’s a life choice, I’m going for it, I have nothing to lose.’ I was injured so it was not as if I was penalizing my club. We are always in questioning, in fact.
I think if I hadn’t crossed paths, I wouldn’t have done it.
Amel Majri, player of the French football teamfranceinfo
If Maryam’s mother still has these doubts today, it’s because the resumption of training, the physical requirement to return to the highest level is terrible. She tells how, during the first weeks, when she leaves training, she hurries home, draws her milk to continue breastfeeding the little one, etc.
In fact, everything is out of the ordinary in this early life of little Maryam. She was 16 days old when her mother came to renew her contract for four years in Lyon. Proof again that things have changed in French football! The boss of the club, Jean-Michel Aulas made him sign this contract when he himself had to admit that he had badly managed the first baby of the club, that of the Icelandic Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir who had not no longer paid by the club for five months, considered “on sick leave”. Finally, the Icelandic player complained to FIFA and the club had to compensate her for 80,000 euros.
For Maryam, her mother’s salary was paid normally until maternity leave – social security then took over, even if the player trained until she gave birth. Three months after her birth, in October, when she had a nanny, the little one then came to spend her days at the club, with the nanny, in a small specially equipped space.
Amel Majri applauded for his return to the field
Maryam’s first trip? Mid-December, she is five months old. Champions League ! His mother is a substitute against Juventus of Turin. The match takes place in Lyon. And there again, an exception: the trainer lets the player go to sleep at home and not at the hotel with the group so as not to disturb the baby’s habits. AT Christmas, Maryam discovers Les Sables d’Olonne, for the OL cohesion internship, which generates frustration for the dad: Amel Majri is well aware that it is also hard for him.
Maryam can in any case be proud of having had her name shouted by a stadium announcer for her six months! On January 14 of this year, his mother stepped onto a pitch again for the first time since her injury and childbirth. When she enters 2th half-time of a championship match at Soyaux, the announcer asks “an ovation for Amel Majri, mother of little Maryam.” Friday April 7, Maryam should discover the Stade Montpied in Clermont Ferrand for the match against Colombia on Friday April 4. With, if Amel Majri enters the field, an announcement from the announcer for the very first time in a match for the French team!