“It had to be a lousy day because we had to do nothing and in the end it will be one of the best!
Lilie is over the moon.
Leaving the hotel-spa complex of Champneys Springs, base camp of the Bleues during the Euro, the young player of the Avant Garde Caennaise, in the midst of her friends, cannot believe it: "It was crazy, I I had never seen them so close".
Lilie talks about the players of the France team when she has just attended the fifteen minutes open to the media, two days before the match against Italy on Sunday (9 p.m., TF1, Canal +).
Lilie and her nineteen other partners from the Norman club will be present in the stands of New York Stadium in Rotherham.
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This is also the main purpose of their long journey that led them there.
But in the project imagined last September by Thibaut, the organizer of the stay, this privileged moment was not planned at all.
It took a succession of serendipity for the troupe, which travels in four vans and will play two matches against English clubs this Saturday and Monday, to find themselves sitting in the grass following the training of the French women.
The nice surprise for the under-16s of the Caennaise forward who were allowed to attend the first 15 minutes of Les Bleues training 2 days before the match against Italy #EURO2022 pic.twitter.com/8PxY8XnhW3
— The Parisian |
sport (@leparisiensport) July 8, 2022
Thibaut and Benoit, educator of less than 16 years of the Avant Garde, find it hard to believe when they tell their journey.
It all started several months ago with the desire to organize a trip to England to come and see a Euro match.
Two are finally on the program, that of the Blue and Netherlands-Sweden, Saturday evening in Sheffield.
A real stroke of luck
After a night on the ferry and long hours on the road heading north, the tired group decided to take a break in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the village 5km from the tricolor base camp.
A little lost, the educators chat with a couple in the street whose wife explains that she knows the manager of Champneys Springs.
Thibaut's approaches to UEFA to try to approach Les Bleues had remained a dead letter.
The manager can't promise anything.
Despite everything, the twenty-seven Normans land in the hotel complex.
In the meantime, they took out their accessories, made up the players in Bleu-blanc-rouge to put the odds on their side.
The management of the France team can, at first, only offer them the photo cards of the players.
Finally, in front of the enthusiasm of the young supporters who parade at the microphones of the TVs, the authorization to attend, like the media, at the beginning of the session, which will begin twenty minutes later, is given to them.
"The fear of falling on an inaccessible team"
“It makes it even better to have the feeling that it's a privilege,” says Benoit.
We were afraid of falling on an inaccessible team and that our young people, who know that their idols are there, could not meet them.
" It's done.
And by giving their badges to Elisabeth Bougeard-Tournon, the head of the French delegation, the budding footballers meet on Sunday evening: “We are going to make some noise, you are only going to hear us!
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