Football: but why do players speak with their hands over their mouths?

"Put the hand ..." (familiar): action, for a pro footballer, to address in public to a teammate or any other player in the game, hand in front of the mouth, so that the words escape any decryption, through the intermediary a microphone, a camera or any other device.

A camera in each smartphone, a smartphone in each pocket, 2.5 million Twitter accounts in France ... So many reasons to "get your hands on", whether it is to designate a shooter, to utter an insult or even to '' evoke a simple appointment with the tattoo artist, or any other banality of the same ilk.

It was Didier Deschamps who, player, unintentionally caused the vogue for this gesture on the pitch. This Sunday, July 2, 2000 in the evening, the captain of the Blues, 31, raises the trophy of the Euro after an epic final in Rotterdam - 2-1 victory over Italy, equalization of Wiltord (90th + 4) , golden goal from Trezeguet (103rd). During a post-match aside, in the central circle of the Feyenoord stadion, the coach Roger Lemerre tries, in vain, to dissuade Deschamps from leaving the Blues. The following Sunday, "Stage 2" decrypt the conversation on the air by a specialist in lip reading, used by deaf-mutes. Scandal.

Media track down "real good phrases"

As of this day, the world champion coach will no longer speak "in the wild" without "putting his hand" and thousands of followers have followed suit. Especially since cameras and microphones have multiplied and improved around the lawn.

The media track down the "real good phrases", as the footballers willingly serve lukewarm water face micro. In France, until last year, the program "D + 1" on Canal + offered "Original Version", a section compiling the projections captured during or around the matches, all periods combined.

Football why players and coaches speak with their hands on their mouths when they are on the pitch pic.twitter.com/RxtG0H9pTB

Besides Deschamps, some actors have been surprised, including some famous. The "It's dead!" By William Gallas during France - China on June 7, 2006, added to the dramatic nature of the tibia-fibula fracture of Djibril Cisse a few days before the World Cup in Germany. Experts focused on the Zidane - Materazzi altercation in the final, but did not agree on the true content of the insult at the origin of the famous coup de Berlin.

As for the thunderous "country of shit" released one day by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, fumasse against the refereeing body and the whole earth one evening of PSG defeat in Bordeaux (3-2) in March 2015, it had caused a stir until the summit of State. And that had earned Ibra four games of suspension.

Pay attention to the gestures

If footballers "put their hands" so that their words are not spread, even if the whole world observes them through the skylight of the television, does their body language give us an element of understanding?

Newsletter - The essentials of the news

I'm registering

Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more

"Consider the right hand, decrypts Philippe Turchet, doctor of language sciences ( author notably of the Universal body language, editions of L'Homme ): when it comes on the right corner of the mouth, I hide what I mean to transmit it. »Instructions, for the most part. "When the hand moves to the left, even to the left corner of the mouth, it is less linked to the content than to the attitude," continues Philippe Turchet. There, I no longer look at my interlocutor, I monitor the environment. At no cost do I want a third party to hear. Most of the time, I lower my head at the same time. I can also be more in the backbiting… ”To watch during a next match…