- Mohamed Simakan left the OM training center in 2010. OM had not wanted him to sign an aspiring contract.
- The young man had been very affected by this decision. He agreed to return to this period for "20 Minutes."
We are not serious when we are 14 years old. "I was a kid," smiles Mohamed Simakan, joined by 20 Minutes . At 14, the current Strasbourg defender slammed the door of the OM training center. "I was unhappy, there were lots of little things that had touched me, it was no longer going at all," rewinds the young player. Back in the Alsatian group after a knee injury, he could find the Vélodrome this Wednesday (9:05 pm) in the knockout stages of the Coupe de France.
But let's go back to this dark day of winter 2010. Locked in his room, Mohamed Simakan no longer wants to hear about either the Velodrome or OM. Or even football. The family calls for help and contacts Abdé Bekaddour, one of the minot's first coaches. The educator goes to block 11 of the Benza city to "play firefighter":
His mother had told me: “Sensi is not doing well at all, he is disgusted, he doesn't want to train anymore!” I don't know what happened at the Commanderie but he was very angry . He's a young introvert, so he didn't want to tell me anything. I told him to put water in his wine and especially to continue soccer. But it was the nerves, the threat to let go of everything. He could die for a ball, that boy! "
But not for a contract. Mohamed Simakan ignores the advice and decides to leave OM. "I did not agree with the contract offered to me by the club," he says. They weren't giving me the type of contract I wanted. When you are 14, you think about the future, you want to be secure. The then boss of the OM training center, Robert Nazaretian, confirms in a word: "He refused what we offered him, will know why." "
"Nobody was aware of what was going on"
For Lamine Guirassy, cousin and adviser to Mohamed Simakan, it is a simple "misunderstanding", even if "promises were not kept" by the leaders of the training center. But the wrongs are shared: “It was not well managed, no one was aware of what was going on. The family also has its share of responsibility. Everyone is partly responsible, except Mohamed, who was only 14 years old! "
Mohamed Simakan passed by OM and revealed by SC Air Bel, holder in European Cup with RCS
(what are we broke when it comes to smelling the talents that we have under the elbow) 😏
Fortunately, the career of the Marseille prodigy does not stop there. The former striker, who had scored 150 goals in a season a few years earlier, finds the small stadiums of Marseille amateur clubs. First at the OG Saint Gabriel. Then at Air Bel, the famous Marseille nursery. He finds playing time and a taste for the ball. "It was the most important! After that, OM tried several times to recover it, ”assures its agent Badou Sambagué.
A “million dollar” miss
But Simakan declines these Olympian offers. After a handful of detections, Strasbourg is the big winner. Simakan joined the Alsatian training center and signed his first professional contract a year later, in May 2018. "It's a shame that OM let him go, because if they want to recruit him today, it will be easily 25 million, enthuses Omar Keddadouche, founder of ASC Vivaux-Sauvagère, where Simakan signed his first license (the club was then called Vivaux Marronniers).
According to the specialized site Transfermarkt, a transfer of the versatile defender would amount to six million euros today. But as Omar Keddadouche says: “It remains a missed opportunity for OM. And it is neither the first nor the last. "
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- Marseilles
- OM