Eric Carrière on the Canal football club set.
-
@ThierryGromik
Eric Carrière, former FCN player and now consultant for Canal +, analyzes at length the current situation of the Nantes club.
He points to the management of President Waldemar Kita and regrets the choice to take Raymond Domenech as coach.
The former international midfielder believes that the club's illness began at the very beginning of the 2000s with the arrival of Socpresse at the head of the club.
His word is rare.
Especially on the club which revealed it at the highest level.
This Tuesday morning, the ex-Canary Eric Carrière (1996-2001) shook up his busy schedule as a wine company manager in Dijon to discuss for nearly fifty minutes the situation of FC Nantes (17th in Ligue 1 and in Metz on Sunday).
The words are posed and weighed.
During this interview, the consultant of Canal +, who does not imagine at all a comeback to the FCN for any position, rewinds the story to return to the beginning of the 2000s, where the roots of evil began to eat away. eight-time champion of France.
What is your view on the situation of your former club?
We often hear about a project or lack of a project in clubs.
It is rather the second option that I have seen in Nantes for quite a few years.
As the project is not very identified in terms of the game, there is no identified player profile.
What makes that there is more chance of being wrong.
At the time, Jean-Claude Suaudeau and Raynald Denoueix had a strong identity.
They wanted thoughtful players, who had a real sense of the game. They were wrong sometimes, but this guideline and this philosophy allowed them to be less wrong.
I'm not going to name any players, but some have come to Nantes in recent years, they would never have come at the time.
This club invests a little in different areas: we make transfers, we want to leave young people and we do post-training from time to time.
Identity is lost.
President Kita is singled out ...
He is one of the presidents who know.
He knows.
A priori, he is someone who has succeeded in business so sometimes we can get intoxicated and think that we will succeed everywhere.
Even technicians who know football well can be wrong.
So those who are not from this background, you can imagine, it is complicated.
Him, he is one of those presidents who know and who in addition have the power to take players.
And he is often wrong?
We will say that he rarely makes the right decisions.
I always have respect for those who come to a club and put in money.
Now, when we analyze the results since his arrival [in 2007]… The figures over several years, that does not lie.
When you take so many coaches… [Domenech is the 18th counting twice Der Zakarian and the interim ones]
Some people think it will never work with President Kita ...
I also think it will never work.
Just like his last choice: the arrival of Domenech.
A logical choice in the end because Kita likes to create a buzz.
But, Domenech or someone else, when you're almost 70, it's hard to say you're building.
These are not consistent choices.
Do you know Raymond Domenech?
I know him very little.
I haven't worked with him.
What I see from him is that he likes to be in the spotlight.
It's good to protect the players sometimes… It can allow the club to save itself, because there are weaker than Nantes.
But then ?
To go where ?
Same, Christian Gourcuff when he took over the FCN, what was the outcome?
Why not take him two years and ask him to train an assistant?
Strictly speaking, that's consistent.
Do you understand that Waldemar Kita persists so much?
I don't see the point for him to stay.
I do not understand its logic.
He's been going through a lot for a long time.
He is someone who likes conflict, I think.
You have to really like it.
He took on a trainer who likes it too… (laughs)
Many observers believe that the club fell on the wrong side at the end of 2001 when Denoueix was sacked.
What do you think ?
Since that time, it's not consistent.
As soon as the club took over by the Socpresse [summer 2000], there was a reversal with presidents in place who knew… Historically, the presidents were however rather erased in Nantes with strong figures at the technical level.
Have technicians taken a back seat?
This was already the case under the Socpresse, and now with Kita.
We ended up with presidents who wanted to exist.
A Bernard Tapie, one is a fan or not, but his personality reflected on Marseille.
Like Jean-Michel Aulas in Lyon.
It's a way of working that can work, but not in Nantes.
There, it is first of all the style of play, the identity that the supporters expect.
We feel that there is a huge gap between the personality of Kita and the values of the club.
There was an error on his part and on the part of those who sold him the club.
The breakup was finally long before Kita then?
Yes, with hindsight, the FCN did not know how to take the necessary turn and transformation.
We always hear about Nantes-style gambling, Nantes identity, but all that to keep it, you needed more money than at the time.
Playing values, a lot of coaches have them and a lot of clubs try to have them, but without money it is no longer possible at the highest level.
Before, it was less hard to keep players.
At the time, players spent their entire careers at the same club, but that is not possible now.
The danger is to tell yourself that you want to do as it was before.
In my opinion, this is no longer possible.
The technicians have not been able to adapt to a change of model with the increasing influx of money?
The sports sector should have said, “Yes, you are right.
We need more money than before and it is not our way of training young people that will be able to save the club alone and make it climb.
" Why ?
Because more than twenty years ago, how many training centers were there that worked well?
Very little.
Everyone is training and emphasizing it now.
To differentiate yourself, you still have to bring in good players.
It takes money.
These two worlds should have communicated better: the leaders on the economic side and the technicians.
That is to say ?
I think a lot of techs shouldn't look down on leaders because it's the same team.
It is the general interest which is at stake and which prevails.
It is utopian to think that money is secondary in football.
Money is necessary in football but not sufficient, but the same can be said about the technical part, knowing how to play football and train, it is necessary but not sufficient.
Sport
FC Nantes: Postcard “Kita circus”, message from Piocelle… We were at the gathering of FCN fans
Sport
FC Nantes: "It can't work", Mickaël Landreau severely judges the arrival of Domenech
Waldemar kita
Raymond domenech
Soccer
FC Nantes
League 1
Nantes
Sport