To breathe at the end of an exhausting season, Jérôme Roussillon is resourceful with his family in the Chardonnerettes district, in Sarcelles (Val-d'Oise).
Before flying to Guadeloupe, the feeling of the work accomplished in his luggage with his team from Wolfsburg, where he has been having fun since the summer of 2018.
At the end of May, his Wolves finished fourth in the German league record, directly qualified for the next Champions League.
A European sesame won on the penultimate day of the Bundesliga, on the ground of Leipzig (2-2).
"It was a great moment, a real feat for Wolfsburg," smiles the 28-year-old left side.
We celebrated it well, from Sunday evening to Tuesday!
(Laughs)
"
It must be said that the Lower Saxony club had not sat at the table of the C1 since 2015-2016, season when he had gone to the quarterfinals of the competition.
“To play matches on Tuesday or Wednesday evening, I dreamed of it since the beginning of my career, entrusts the player.
The Champions League, everyone watches it, talks about it.
So argue ... I already have chills.
"
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"I risked pulmonary embolism if I tried too hard"
Tireless engine within the formidable rearguard of Wolfsburg - second defense of the Championship (37 goals conceded), in front of Bayern Munich (44) -, the former international tricolor (U18 and U20) passed by the national football institute de Clairefontaine (INF) had a great first half of the season.
Before being cut off by the Covid-19, severely contaminated last December. “I got it after a match against Bayern Munich, we were still unbeaten in the Championship, remembers the one who lived through three very difficult months. It killed me: the loss of smell, taste, vomiting, enormous fatigue, pain in the lungs, he lists. I got it all. The doctors then told me that I risked a pulmonary embolism if I made too much effort at high intensity… ”It will not find a suitable form until mid-March, with a playing time necessarily impacted. But always staying positive. “I tell myself that there is worse in life. I could still have ended up in the hospital, on a ventilator. "
By joining the Wölfe three seasons ago, German champions in 2009 with Edin Dzeko and Grafite, Jérôme Roussillon knew where he was going.
And that he landed in a championship "of incredible intensity, with crazy goals every weekend".
In the middle of a cosmopolitan but very French-speaking cloakroom, he is surrounded by his two “brothers”.
“The boss” Josuha Guilavogui (30 years old), and the last French Bundesliga sensation born in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne), Maxence Lacroix (21 years old): “A real nugget.
He is a good kid, a very big worker, and a very big sulky too.
(Laughs)
He will go very far, in a top club, and in the French team.
"
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Invisible model for the young people of Sarcelles
From the city stadium with balloons tapped in the streets of Sarcelles, the Val-d'Oisien measures “the distance covered”, from Ligue 1 fields (Sochaux, Montpellier) to those across the Rhine. And don't forget where he comes from, decked out in an always discreet generosity. He does not want to go into details at first, preferring out of modesty not to come to light.
Before entrusting himself personally and financially in the social actions of the association "Culture du cœur des Sarcellois", of which he is the sponsor. “With Idriss Saounera
(Editor's note: president of the association and amateur footballer from Sarcelles)
and Yoann Salmier
(Editor's note: defender born in Villiers-le-Bel, in Ligue 1 next season with Troyes)
, we helped children from the city to provide itself with equipment for the last school year, ”he finally blurted out.
From Sarcelles, he's also closely following the performance of another city kid, Riyad Mahrez, impressing this season with Manchester City in the Premier League and Champions League. “Riyadh, I followed what he did this season against Dortmund, PSG, Chelsea… It's impressive. We talk to each other from time to time, we have a lot of friends in common. "
Without forgetting to send a little message to “[his] little one” from AS Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis) Jonathan Ikoné, recent champion of France with Lille. A friend that he may meet again one day in the France team, he hopes, he who, again in 2019, received pre-summons from Didier Deschamps. Sign that the staff of the Blues keep an eye on the one who will have in a few months an even greater visibility with the Champions League. “Who wouldn't dream of the Blues? I work, I always have it in mind, you never know. Look at Karim Benzema… ”