"We're not playing Radradra, we're playing Bristol!"
The manager of Bordeaux-Bègles, Christophe Urios, in vain to warn, the semi-final of the European Challenge this Friday evening (8:45 p.m.) in Bristol will be well marked with the seal of the Fijian center Semi Radradra, passed in the English camp in the offseason.
The chances of life sometimes do things well.
Or funny things.
By committing in November with Bristol, the Fijian star did not suspect for a single moment that she would meet her Girondin friends again this fall, in the European Challenge, for a place in the final that neither of these two cities, twinned by elsewhere since 1947, has not known until then.
This prospect took shape at the end of the pandemic when the organizer of the event maintained at all costs its final phases scheduled in the spring, allowing transferred players to evolve in their new team.
"
Semi (Radradra) did not want to leave
"
Laurent Marti, president of UBB
After wearing the UBB, triggered a wave of optimism last season, Radradra donned Bristol's outfit this summer, as if nothing had happened in view of his express adaptation, with that X-factor label sticking to him. decidedly to the skin.
In recent months, frustration, fatalism, have accompanied the club of Laurent Marti, orphan of this jewel supposed to take him to the end of his dreams at the end of last season.
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"Semi did not want to leave", revives the Gironde president who could not or wanted to outbid the Bears' offer but who keeps Radradra in high esteem.
"He's the first player who, when he left, came to say goodbye to me and also gave me a gift," said Marti.
Can we consider his reunion in the semi-finals as another gift?
A priori no.
"He helped us a lot to get there and have him face it, today we are a little disappointed", sums up, nostalgic, Captain Jefferson Poirot.
“To be honest, before the game against Edinburgh (23-14 victory), we received encouraging video messages from the former players who were there last year and Semi also sent a message.
It was nice, smiles the pillar.
But he recalled that we would surely see each other next week. "
Or how to get a little more into the heads of your exes, mark them, inhibit them.
"We should not be fixated on Semi", tries the opener Matthieu Jalibert to chase the Fijian specter.
“
He's a player to muzzle.
But I have my little idea ...
"
Christophe Urios
“He's a player to be muzzled,” Urios admits.
But I have my little idea.
Remember, we came to Bordeaux with Castres in 2019, we hadn't seen Radradra too much, we had taken care of it… ”Heard smile from the UBB coach.
His recipe, making Guy Roux: “in football, we call that '' individual defense ''.
If he's gonna pee, we're gonna piss with him.
We must not let go for a single second, he explains.
With nothing, he can do a lot of things and if, like against the Dragons (
56-17 victory in the quarterfinals
), he has a lot of things, he simply becomes unstoppable.
And as next to Radradra, in Bristol, there are plenty of good ones ... "
UBB has therefore been notified.
But determined because “we too have recovered players who will help us like Guido (
Petti
), Joseph
(Dweba),
the two Ben (
Lam and Tameifuna
), lists Poirot.
We also have our say in this game. ”
Read also
Calendar and results Challenge Cup 2019/2020
