Michaël Cuisance's left foot was already doing wonders during his years in Strasbourg.

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ALAIN ROBERT / SIPA

  • It will be the stage venue this Friday evening during the RC Strasbourg-Olympique de Marseille match.

    A native of the Alsatian capital, Michaël Cuisance returns to face a club he knows well.

  • Why did the midfielder escape Racing?

    The story is complex and is not linked only to the relegation of the Alsatian club to the amateur divisions.

  • "He is still very attached to Strasbourg, I think he would see himself coming back to play Racing one day, a little late in his career," assures one of his friends, Ibrahim Baspinar.

This time he's going to cross the road.

This Friday evening in Ligue 1 and unless his coach chooses otherwise, Michaël Cuisance should play well at the Meinau stadium.

An enclosure that the current Olympique de Marseille midfielder, 21, has seen for a long time from the training grounds of the RC Strasbourg training center.

Without ever going professional in the club of his childhood.

A contract story?

Signing bonus?

Calls from the greats of Europe?

The story is more complex.

“He arrived with us when he started out in 2007,” recalls Thierry Brand, then head of training at the flagship Alsatian club.

“We hadn't necessarily spotted him but we were the only ones to train twice a week in the smaller categories, we were popular.

"

The beautiful combination @MichaelCUISANCE x @JordanAmavi x @ dimpayet17 😍🔥 pic.twitter.com/L7ANcvRh1i

- Olympique de Marseille (@OM_Officiel) October 8, 2020

The small left-hander, "with a rather frail physique but endowed with great determination" follows the classic course of a budding footballer.

Without hiding his pride.

"At the local city stadium where he was all the time, Mika came with Racing equipment", details the former hope Ibrahim Baspinar, who grew up in the same district of the city, in Elsau.

“At the time, we had Gameiro after the Niang-Pagis years, it was a dream.

"

Except that the Alsatian club then begins a long descent towards the lower divisions.

Until his administrative relegation to CFA 2 in the summer of 2011, which caused him to lose professional status and ... many players.

Even the youngest.

“We must have seen 45 leave,” says Thierry Brand.

Especially those who were finishing their training.

»But not Michaël Cuisance.

Not yet.

It is in the spring of 2012 that his departure will take place.

“We have to say to ourselves that at that time, he was one of the three best of the 1999 generation but he was only 12-13 years old, specifies the Racing trainer.

So I received the family and I told them that at the age when he could join the first team, we would have returned to Ligue 2 or Ligue 1. In the meantime, he could stay at the club.

We no longer had a training center but we continued to train as if, with five sessions per week and an agreement with a sports section in a college.

Then I gave them time to think.

"

The following months did not change the choice of the young player.

"He absolutely wanted to go to the Pôle espoir in Nancy, he dreamed of it," continues Thierry Brand.

We left on good terms with the parents.

"But the Racing page was finished, also the fault of a blackmail policy led at the time by the club" We had lost so many players that we wanted to stop the bleeding.

So it was "if you go to the pole, you will no longer be made redundant with us".

We also did that because we knew that in Nancy, all the professional clubs came to help themselves and we couldn't compete.

"

"One hand instead of the left foot"

Like ASNL, who then quickly spotted the talented midfielder, before seeing him go to Mönchengladbach and then to Bayern Munich.

The future OM player still returned to play two seasons in Alsace, from 2014 to 2016 in Schiltigheim.

“After his departure from Racing, he needed a club and Sporting was a logical starting point,” explains Fréderic Gluck, who had the prodigy in U14 for half a season.

Before he was upgraded to U15 at the break.

"I was already saying that he had one hand in place of the left foot", laughs the educator, who has kept only good memories of this adolescent "very well brought up, kind, calm, polite ... Not a model but almost .

I always enjoy meeting him.

"

It is not often, but Michaël Cuisance returns from time to time in the region where his family still lives.

“No longer at Elsau but there are still his cousins ​​here,” says Ibrahim Baspinar.

“He is still very attached to Strasbourg, I think he would see himself coming back to play Racing one day, a little late in his career.

“Despite a record including a Champions League with Bayern, it has barely started.

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