The intruder of the news gives each evening a spotlight on a personality who could have passed under the radars of the news.
After having “choked”, as they say at Bollaert, 2nd place in Ligue 1 in Marseille last week, Lens welcomed Reims on Friday May 12 for the 35th day of Ligue 1. The northern club won 2-1 despite a workforce reduced to 10 after 20 minutes of play. OM only play on Sunday against Angers, already relegated to the 2nd division and will watch for a misstep from the Lensois and why not from this announcer, our intruder from the news of the day, that the whole league 1 envy them.
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The best way to understand Sylvano is to listen to him introduce the 11 players before kick-off, microphone in hand, in his pre-match show in the middle of the field:
This video was shot last weekend against OM. On Canal +, commentators interrupted so that their viewers could enjoy the show. Sylvano told our colleague from France Bleu Nord Sylvain Charlet:Canal wanted to film a little, there was Laure Boulleau on the ground and I saw that she was taking advantage. I could see that she was happy to be in the middle and to feel, because you feel something. It’s a crazy thing, we feel that the noise is rising”.
“We feel it. There is a kind of breath”
Sylvano, the Bollaert stadium announcerin France Bleu Nord
“I have this relationship with Bollaert where I feel him breathing Bollaert. I can’t explain it. I can sit for thirty minutes before (the match) in Bollaert. Alone, I like it. It’s stupid this I’m saying. People are going to think he’s completely inhabited“.
If Sylvani feels this stadium so well, it’s because he grew up there. We are at the heart of the mining basin. The father, the grandfather and the godfather took him there when he was a kid. And it was not so much football itself that he loved but the stadium: “Me when I was little, I didn’t necessarily watch the game and I saw something else in their eyes. I saw them really happy, as I saw them at a family meal for example. It’s crazy to say it but to see them in the stadium exploding with joy on a Lens goal, I was watching them. I didn’t watch football at first.”
A football encyclopedia
Football, Sylvano is still coming there gradually. As he is 40 years old today, his first memory is Euro 1988: the Netherlands winning the competition with Gullit, Rijkaard and Van Basten. First big memory. And today Sylvano is a living football encyclopedia. And this passion made him rise in rank within the clubs of supporters. Very young, he joined the Red Tigers, the most influential supporters club in the stadium, of which he became the hood (the leader!). In the center of the Marek stand, Sylvano stood on a perch, megaphone in hand, to launch the songs. And the other stands followed.
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Sylvano, the supporter hood, is then postman. But when he became a dad, he decided to take a step back until RC Lens asked him, three years ago, to become Bollaert’s announcer. He knew the whole ecosystem of the stadium so well, with the historical announcer Roger Rudinski as a model. Today Sylvano is therefore at the heart of the game and at the heart of his passion.
“Adrenaline”, its engine
You can hear it when he talks about his arrival at pre-match training. This is his moment with the players, who all know him: “The Adrenaline rush is when the players arrive at the warm-up. I had to eat the last time, I almost fell. Adrenaline rushed but really there. In fact my professional life means that I finish at 6 p.m. and I have to arrive at the stadium at 6 p.m. so the delta is really short. And suddenly, I make my announcement and bim! I go to sit down and I see stars and everything so I had to ask the stage manager for bananas. That’s the adrenaline rush.”
“I can say that I’m having fun. I hear what the coaches say to their players, it’s crazy. I hear the exchanges that the players have between them, moreover, for the last match, I was so focus on actions that I almost missed actions. There I realize it at the last moment”.
Sylvano’s Job ends at the end of the match when the club wins with the “quibbled“, this essential Bollaert song, sung by the players with the supporters and of course, Sylvano.