Nantes-PSG: football, "a world of opportunists", tackle Christian Gourcuff

In the small Jonelière press room, he arrives to the minute.

While the training of the day to prepare for the reception of PSG this Saturday, ended with a little delay, the Nantes coach refuses to make us wait.

And his mask in the colors of the club is deceptive: Christian Gourcuff, true to himself, always speaks without filter.

How do you manage the sanitary conditions linked to Covid-19?

CHRISTIAN GOURCUFF.

Everything is disturbed.

For months, it's been strange.

Already the previous championship which stopped on a classification which meant nothing.

Then, a recovery with a long preparation.

Then affected players where, without consistency, they were put on hold for a month with heart tests.

Against PSG, we will have five players affected by Covid-19.

Of course, the priority is the state of health.

But in football, you have to have a free spirit.

There, we are constantly in questions, wondering every day what will fall on us.

The competitions will continue while, during the first confinement, everything had stopped ...

That beats me.

Of course, I'm not going on the medical side.

But to definitely stop a championship in the middle, it was absurd.

It is against the ethics of sport.

Few people said it, because each one thought only of its own interests.

Ethics are no longer considered in football.

Are you happy in Nantes?

I was in coming here almost on a whim when I considered myself retired.

President Kita, who had approached me twice in the past, returned to the charge.

And I said yes.

It was for a year and just a helping hand.

All my career, I have functioned with affect.

The results created a remarkable working climate because here, there is a football sensitivity that suits me.

I have always claimed this vision which, here, goes beyond the field.

Is a good coach a coach who lasts while maintaining his principles?

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I don't know what “a good coach” means.

We are in a world of opportunists and careerists.

Coaches now have agents and everything works out of interests.

This vision is unbearable to me.

The world of football is like that of society: immediate profit is a priority.

Careers are built on it.

In this environment where communication is increasingly aseptic, you seem to remain natural ...

The only thing I have changed is that I don't talk about the people I don't like anymore.

I ignore them.

Ten years ago, I got angry more easily.

But there are a lot of people that I like and that I room often.

I have an outward image that is not reality.

I am someone who loves to laugh.

I do not calculate.

In fact, as I am reserved, I observe.

And if I'm confident, I let go.

Could you train in a club like PSG with only stars?

I do not know.

I almost managed the PSG team when Charles Biétry, then president

, offered it to me.

Maybe I was inexperienced.

It is not a regret.

After training, it is constantly seeking excellence.

If we are, each time, confronted with selfishness and complicated states of mind, which is more and more the case of the high level, that does not interest me.

Do you understand that a coach like Laurent Blanc is always without a club?

The problem of careers is first of all networks.

It's easier to have the right agent or even the agent agency.

Some European agents are the law and the clubs are at the mercy of these people who control world football.

How much time do you still give yourself in the middle?

A few months (smiles).

You know I'm 65.

I extended here for a year last season and I don't see any further than that.

Your son, Yoann, who ended his career anonymously, didn't he suffer from the inability of this environment to integrate people who could denote by their good education and their discretion?

It's beyond football.

From supporters to social networks, you have to show the same values ​​as others otherwise you are out of step and you will be rejected.

I also consider myself out of step.

Yoann, like me, we have a passion for this sport.

His biggest regret is not having been able to physically play longer in the fullness of his means.

He is so in love with football that the frustration is there.

Can he ever train?

As for me, the context will be fundamental.

It is obvious that he will not be looking for a job just to be a coach.

Those who would like to request it will have to integrate it.

It's complex.

Before, it was simple: clubs were looking for a coach based on his ideas.

There, we have financial companies which mandate agents to build a team.

And the coaches are part of this strategy.

It is all very far from us.