Rooming, insults… But what is he really saying to himself on a football field?

Alvaro and Neymar, the real dialogue.

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• The disciplinary committee of the LFP is due to rule on the Neymar-Alvaro case on Wednesday.

• The Brazilian accuses the Spaniard of having proffered racist insults on him on several occasions during the last PSG-OM.

• The opportunity to wonder what is really said between four eyes on a football field.

Two players who speak badly to each other, an important sounding board, and now some seem to discover that the players do not exchange only pleasantries on a football field.

Yes, the insults flew during the last PSG-OM.

It will be up to the LFP's disciplinary committee on Wednesday to determine whether Alvaro has exceeded the limits by spraying Neymar with racist insults.

In the meantime, this may be an opportunity to wonder what is really being said between four eyes on the lawn.

Alvaro Gonzalez would have called Neymar a "shit monkey" via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/1oFdlETzPo

- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) September 21, 2020

Insults between players are as old as football.

We're not saying it's a good thing.

Just that it's like that.

But how do you see all of this from the inside?

And what exactly are the players telling each other?

“Oh, a lot of things!” José Saez immediately blurted out when he was connected to the subject.

Most of the time, it's rooming.

There are insults, too… it speaks about mothers, fathers, sisters.

"

The former Valenciennes captain was more of the type to put on tampons than open it, but it happened to him.

Like everyone.

"A field is a real playground", summarizes a former referee.

And not that of the nursery school.

Rather that of high school, where we insult ourselves as we say hello.

In fact, the whole story is there.

If we observe from the outside, we do not understand anything, we find that shocking.

When you're in it, you don't even notice it anymore.

“We don't really think so.

With Florent Balmont [the former Losc midfielder], we got plenty of it and we are very friends, ”illustrates José Saez.

"A culture that tolerates insult"

“Football is an extremely lounging environment,” says the former Nantes resident Charles Deniveau.

And insult often goes hand in hand.

It is anchored very deeply.

“We can always say that it is not normal, that in an advanced civilization we do not have to behave like that.

But they have a culture that tolerates insult, ”notes Tony Chapron, a big fan of sociologist Norbert Elias.

The former whistle, who has heard a hell of a lot during his 450 or so pro games, has himself been criticized for using the same language towards the players.

“We have to put ourselves at the same level,” he defends.

At the beginning, we try to be polite, to be careful, but we quickly realize that it is inaudible.

It happened to me to be virulent, it is true, but never insulting.

As soon as it is a referee who says "shut up", it becomes unacceptable.

While during this time the guys call each other son of a bitch.

"

Joey Barton and his "psychological problems"

Not very thin, but a great classic of the genre.

“Insults level, there are those on the mother for everyone.

The mother is the number one tool for destabilization in the field, ”says Hérita Ilunga, a defender who passed through Sainté, Toulouse or Rennes.

Because swear words are used above all for that.

Disrupt, disarm.

"It's quite common, to undermine the confidence of the opponent or get him out of the game," adds the former Lensois Franck Queudrue.

The full-back played for nine years in England.

He remembers very well the master in the matter, a certain Joey Barton.

“This is the worst I have encountered in my career.

He clearly had psychological problems.

He never stopped.

All family members pass by, the less elegant ways of reminding you that you are a little French too.

On this point at least, football has changed very little over time.

Even if certain words, and it is fortunate, benefit from (small) societal advances.

"The atmosphere is not more deleterious than before, but what has changed is the scope that we give to certain insults", slips a member of the medical staff of the Girondins de Bordeaux, in the circuit since 20 years.

The latter refers to the term "motherfucker", which was the subject of heated debate at the start of last season.

Words and evils… In football, the insult "motherfucker" at the heart of the debate https://t.co/FwvLocHlh2

- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) September 13, 2019

“Football is the reflection of society.

Aggression is present everywhere and social networks are involved, ”analyzes Christian Gourcuff.

The Nantes coach is not a big fan of the turn taken by the community.

“What is regrettable is that those in charge - media, clubs - play it.

They turn up the sauce.

We should not be surprised after there are buggers.

"

The little game of stupid questions

But it's not just vulgarity on a soccer field.

Another method, which does not necessarily require going to the gutters of one's mother tongue, has proven its worth.

Something a little perverse, bordering on moral harassment.

"If you've read two or three files in the press on the guy you're going to have in front of you before the game, lean where it hurts during the 90 minutes," Ilunga explains.

It's part of the game. ”

There is also the blow of the stupid questions, completely irrelevant, which puffs you up slowly.

The best anecdote on this subject was told last year by Radamel Falcao to

magazine

about a match between Colombia and Uruguay, played in 2013:

I was never able to concentrate, because of José Maria Giménez.

During the whole game, he asked me questions.

First he asked me which car I had.

Then he asked me why the flags of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela had the same colors.

Then he came up to me and told me it was his debut, that he was very happy and that he would get the date of this match tattooed.

So he asked me if September was spelled with or without a 'p'.

In the end, I missed an opportunity because I didn't jump on a cross.

He drove me crazy!

We can imagine the thing very well.

A bit like in this short film by Richard Gale where a man brings hell to another guy, simply armed with a teaspoon.

A bit in the same vein, there is the opponent who wants to eat your brain at a crucial moment of the match.

During a Reims-Strasbourg crucial for the rise in Ligue 1 a few years ago, Felipe Saad did not hesitate to annoy a small youngster who was about to shoot a penalty to 1-1 in the last minutes.

“I untied his shoelaces without anyone seeing him.

Afterwards, I went to talk to him, in a very detached way, retraces the latter.

I said to him “but no, homie, you just came back, you cannot take this penalty.

Are you sure you want to do this?

Because you are sure to miss it ”.

Our goalie added a layer of it, and finally the guy pulled the bar.

"

Ilunga, who made a nice break from four years in England in his career, remembers a duel against Marc Albrighton while he was playing at West Ham: “I couldn't defend against him, I took the water .

At one point, all you have is the insults and the pressures on you, so you give it a try.

There it had succeeded, but in real life, if the guy is solid in his head, he knows he won because that means that I had no other recourse.

"

Another word very widespread in the field, the threat.

“The attacker who gives you a little bridge, you tell him 'don't do that again or I'll cut you up', describes Queudrue.

But that's a false threat, of course.

Because what are you gonna do if he gives you one?

Are you going to dry it off and take a red card?

It is he who will have won so it is useless.

"

Racism between players?

In this regard, Thiago Motta left a nice mark in Ligue 1. “It was intimidation,” recalls Saez.

He would tell you "we're going to break your legs", stuff like that.

In Italian.

I understood, I'm Spanish

.

Obviously, he didn't think so.

It's football, there is something at stake, it speaks, it's hot what.

Sometimes more than others.

"

And sometimes it goes beyond the limits.

If racist incidents are unfortunately not so rare with spectators in the stands, they are much more so between players.

"I have never suffered racist insults," says Sidney Govou.

"I am a thousand miles from imagining that there is that between us, continues Ilunga.

Because football is the mix, the melting pot since we were kids.

You just have to see the representativeness of origins from an early age.

"

"We cannot say that there is no racism either"

But they do exist.

Tony Chapron remembers having expelled a player "who had called an opponent a dirty nigger" when he started out in CFA2 25 years ago.

“We cannot say that there is no racism either,” says Yohan Tavares, a Franco-Portuguese who has traveled a lot (France, Cyprus, Thailand, Italy, Belgium, today Portugal).

I have memories of matches where people of color, not only black but also Asians, Arabs, Indians, etc., were victims.

What is striking is that when it comes to psychological destabilization, it will play out systematically on racism when the person targeted is not white.

Conversely, when a white player is rotten, we will above all insult his mother.

"

These behaviors are certainly more marked in some countries than others.

One thing to take into account when talking about insults is the origin of the player or the culture of the country where it is happening.

“Whether in Greece or playing against South Americans, I saw how the language elements were not appropriate if we translated them into French, assures Govou.

South Americans have the "hijo de puta" and "concha de tu madre" very easy, I've heard it all over the place.

Depending on the culture, all of this has different implications.

I'm not sure guys are really aware of the insults they're throwing around.

"

Know where to stop

A remark made by almost all the players with whom we spoke.

Swinging "fuck you" will go unnoticed in the Premier League.

Less in Ligue 1. “I sent Balotelli out for that,” said Chapron.

I was criticized for it.

You have to adapt to the local cultural context, it is sometimes difficult.

Afterwards, we say that the referees are not there to play moral fathers, but when we hear, we must sanction.

You just have to find the right balance.

Everyone puts the limit where they want.

"

Today, players have gotten into the habit of doing their little business away from the referee, with their hand covering their mouths, just in case.

Despite the dozens of cameras and what the actors can tell us, we will never really know everything that is being said.

“In the field, we are at work.

And at work, sometimes you don't have to be nice, ”says José Saez.

It works, but only when you know where to stop.

Sport

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Miscellaneous

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