Rio Mavuba is the new coach of the Girondins reserve.
-
NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP
Rio Mavuba returned to the Girondins de Bordeaux this summer thirteen years after leaving the club.
The former Lille midfielder is the reserve's new assistant coach.
The ex-international confides to
20 Minutes
on his retraining.
Thirteen years.
This is how long it took Rio Mavuba to find its way back.
That of the castle of Haillan, the training center of the Girondins de Bordeaux.
Having left as a confirmed player in 2007 after 154 games in the scapular jersey, the former midfielder has been back there for a few weeks as a young coach.
"I recognized a lot of heads but for the rest, it changed a lot, especially the training center, the infrastructure has improved," admits the new assistant coach of the reserve.
In the meantime, he has had a great career between Villarreal, Lille and Spartak Prague.
The time to become champion of France and to win the Coupe de France with the Mastiffs after the Coupe de la Ligue with the Girondins or to wear the tunic of the Blues thirteen times and to experience a quarter-final of the World Cup in 2014 A CV that holds up.
But now it is definitely time to cross over like many elders.
No more shorts, make way for the tracksuit.
📣 thank you @fcemarlac & @girondins 🙌🏾 #NewChallenge #retouralamaison #AntoineVerges pic.twitter.com/Hp0UWZyWYH
- Rio Mavuba (@riomavuba) October 11, 2020
A desire to train coming late
"I wanted to stay in football but the desire to train really came late, it's not something that I had in me for years", explains the one who has also been a consultant for RMC Sport for two years after the end of his career in 2018. There he comments on European Cup matches and meets the greatest coaches of the old continent.
Even if the first discussion on the job dates back to "an exchange with René Girard in Lille when I was 29-30", remembers Rio Mavuba.
It was really during this period that he decided to take the plunge.
Never stingy with work like the player he was on a field, he played and then trained at MĂ©rignac-Arlac (N3 club) in addition to traveling during the week to comment and prepare his BEF (coaching certificate of soccer).
He discovers his new job, sometimes with surprise:
It's a lot of work!
We kinda ignore that when we are a player because we are in our bubble and again, I was captain so I had to ensure the balance of the group.
We really don't realize what the staff are doing, and all the stress that goes with it.
"
Today he recognizes it, if "it is not the same fatigue, it is necessary to have very strong backs to train".
And yet, he is only an assistant for the moment.
"He's already very into the details"
An assistant who "facilitates relations thanks to his joie de vivre", says one of his players at
20 Minutes.
“We feel that he is still in the transition between the player and the coach but he is already very detailed on a daily basis.
The little things that make the difference like a stretched pass on the ground instead of a balloon raised unnecessarily and he is not afraid to intervene to say something ”, continues this young pro from the training center.
The one who is "happy to come home" claims absolutely nothing and makes no plan on the comet, he knows the "environment" too well.
Rio Mavuba has played more than 150 matches in the Girondins de Bordeaux jersey.
- PATRICK BERNARD / AFP
"I'm here to learn," he recalls while he is currently passing his DES (higher state diploma) after signing a two-year contract with the club according to our information.
To succeed in this new chapter, he tries to draw inspiration from another former member of the Bordeaux house with whom he played, Mauricio Pochettino.
But, the time is still to learn within a club that he knows inside out: "The Girondins have trained the player now it's the coach's turn (
smiles
)".
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