Raymond Domenech, the coach of FC Nantes.

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SEBASTIEN SALOM GOMIS / SIPA

  • Each week,

    20 Minutes

     invites a personality to comment on a social phenomenon in their “ 

    20 Minutes

     with…” meeting.

  • This Friday, meeting with Raymond Domenech, who hit the headlines at the end of December by agreeing to take the reins of FC Nantes, in great difficulty in Ligue 1.

  • The former coach of the Blues tells us about him, talks about his relationship with the media and the suffering for his relatives at the time of the World Cup in South Africa.

After a few minutes of interview, he ended up releasing this sentence with a smile that he never gave up: "Maybe I'm making a mistake in talking about myself like that ..." For

20 Minutes

, Raymond Domenech (69) agreed for nearly forty minutes, in the Jonelière press room, to play the game. That of not talking about football at all, but about himself.

Of the man who at the same time divides, annoys and captivates.

From the former coach of the Blues (2004-2010) escorted forever by the fiasco of the France team in South Africa in 2010. His arrival in Nantes at the end of December panicked not only the local press but also the national press . 

20 minutes

sought to understand why this man, hated in France after the snub from Knysna, "fascinates" to this point.

Raymond, do you feel like you are misunderstood?

I don't ask myself that kind of question.

You can never stop people from thinking things.

Me, I have the impression of being in my place, of being coherent.

Contrary to what people think, I do nothing to provoke or to justify something or to prove something.

But, I understand that one can think that… There are people that one likes or that one does not like, it is part of the life.

People more media, one has the impression that it takes more scale.

But I don't have any more problems than that.

Maybe it's more “unloved” that suits you then?

I live in a small village in Nanterre because the center is a small village.

I am part of the furniture.

The feeling of being frowned upon, I don't have.

I only live with people with whom I have a good relationship.

I am simply a villager, a good neighbor who talks to everyone.

You often say that you are popular, is that so?

No one has ever stopped me to say, “You're a big jerk!

".

In Nanterre, the first month I arrived, there were always young people ringing at our door and running off.

It lasted three or four days.

And one day I waited behind the door.

When they rang, I opened.

They were surprised.

I told them that I had very young children who were sleeping.

We talked for a good half hour.

They never did it again.

I know them all now and we say hello.

I don't have a problem with people.

I do my shopping, I go to the movies - well when we could.

I don't know if it's being popular, but it's just being normal.

Social networks, and to a lesser extent the press, do not miss you anyway ...

On social media, when I have something to say, I write it down and what people think about it, that's okay.

For example, I post a photo and after that I don't take care of the comments… Social networks, most often under cover of anonymity, are the reservoir of many people's unease.

Newspapers, I read.

Not always when I have to read them.

Often I stack them up and look at them sometime after.

And your provocative side ...

Fun.

I don't provoke people.

Raymond Domenech during the interview.

- SEBASTIEN SALOM GOMIS / SIPA

In September 2008, before a meeting of the Blues, when you enter the press room and declare that you smell blood, is it provocative?

This is really how I felt when I walked into the room.

But a few seconds before entering, I had no idea I was going to talk about this.

Truly.

I was not there for that.

It was before France-Serbia, it was absolutely necessary to win to stay in the race for qualification.

The room was full and I really smelled that smell… It could have been considered that way, but that was not the objective.

People often take what I say to be provocative.

I just say what I think and what I feel, but never with the aim of provoking.

Have you had some unfortunate comments about Maradona recently?

I didn't want to provoke.

Maybe I chose the wrong example.

I should have taken Messi's.

I just wanted to say that we coaches all dream of having the greatest players in the world.

I am often told to be careful because in fact people only remember some of my sentences and not everything I said before.

I do the titles myself with my statements.

Yes, it is a parasite, but it is neither voluntary nor provocative.

You like to have fun in certain situations.

When you ask for Estelle Denis [her partner] for the hand at the end of a match, live on TV, is it fun?

Oh no, don't confuse love and fun.

Before this sentence, I took stock of the match for more than a quarter of an hour, that we forget.

At the end, the journalist asks me: “And now, what are you going to do?

I had turned the page, I had made my assessment.

I wanted to move on.

And I said what I was feeling.

It was not provocation.

We come back to your first question on the misunderstood.

If you only knew the number of people - and especially women - who told me: “How beautiful!

Like what, eh!

The football microcosm found it to be provocation, protection… All the people who only saw the feeling side told me that it was beautiful.

But why are we talking about you so much?

Here in Nantes, some people criticize you for being a communication pro ...

Wait!

Who asks me the questions?

I thought we were going to talk about Nantes there.

From the club, from the rest, from the project.

I don't know why people always want to know more than what I say and repeat over and over again.

If I could stay in the shadows… and we only talk about the club's players, that's fine with me.

We even said that it was the players who made the team in 2006, that suits me very well!

It doesn't bother me at all!

I am not the supreme leader.

Do we live normally after what you experienced in South Africa in 2010?

It took two years and until the publication of my book * to live normally.

Afterwards, I resumed a normal life.

Until then I always lived to the rhythm of training, games, snacks.

There was nevertheless a need to cut, to find yourself alone ...

Not alone no… with family, friends.

To relive a normal life.

This is what I often say to coaches: “Don't be afraid to cut a year!

We are full of energy when we come back.

This profession is tiring for all coaches at all levels.

You also have to learn to cut while you are in office.

Often coaches work 24 hours a day. You have to be able to turn off the phone for two days, go to the movies, etc., but coaches struggle.

Did you need to rebuild yourself?

What you experienced in 2010 was violent ...

It was not for me that it was the most violent.

It's for Estelle and the children, and rather the older ones.

The other two were too small to see the consequences.

But I have two children who are over 30 years old, even 40 years old for one today, and for them it was very hard.

And for those around me too.

To read, to hear that.

My mom when she read the title of

L'Equipe

["Fuck You Dirty Son of a Bitch"], yes, it was hard.

It was this form of guilt that was hard on me.

To say to yourself: "I am responsible for all this, for what they are going through!"

»Afterwards, I am not because these are the consequences of what is around.

But it's through me that it happens to the people we love.

And they are suffering.

We are used to that, the coaches ...

But can't we be used to that, to such a surge?

But if.

Completely.

We're all used to it.

What Rudi [Garcia] took in Lyon or Marseille.

Claude Puel.

All at one time or another ...

Raymond Domenech arrived in Nantes at the end of December.

- SEBASTIEN SALOM GOMIS / SIPA

But for you, it was a mondiovision event!

What is broadcast at the world level has no more impact than what the coach experiences in his village… It's the same.

There are the same effects.

There are people around who can put pressure because there was a little article in the column of the local regional newspaper where the guy is turned on.

Whether it's global, interplanetary, local… It's what matters around.

The rest we do not see.

Just because it was a planetary event did not mean that it multiplied the problems that my children, my wife and my parents had at that time.

Is it that shell you have that allows you to be insensitive to it?

I like to take the story of the frog that we plunge into the water.

You know her ?

You take a frog, you boil water, you throw it in the water, it dies right away.

On the other hand, you put it in cold water, you boil the water very slowly, it will get used to the heat and live much longer.

It's like us coaches.

I've been going through this since I was 19.

Already a player, we experienced this pressure.

What would you like to have left of you later?

I do not ask myself the question.

I have this philosophy of the present moment.

People will remember what they want, that's not my problem.

You have been a consultant for the L'Equipe channel for many years.

What have you learned about being a journalist?

I haven't always done the right thing with the media.

At one point, I closed the door a bit, telling myself "I'm doing my job and they'll do theirs", when we can't do our own thing.

We have to do it in collaboration.

What I also learned is that dishonest journalists, there aren't many.

There are, I know a few, but not many.

I understood that we could not put barriers between you and us.

It is not possible.

I also understood that you have to do your job and ask certain questions, and it is not necessarily dishonesty, nastiness.

This is because you need to flesh out your papers a little, to think outside the box ...

We have precise angles sometimes, like today with this interview only on you.

Ten years ago you might have left the room before the end, right?

No, I would have done this interview, but in a more cynical, more sarcastic way.

So you would have provoked?

Yes, but without being aware of doing it.

To provoke is to do something knowing full well what one is doing.

It is not the same.

At the time, I was quite lively in the exchanges.

I was operating like this, but it was not provocation again.

*

All alone.

Souvenirs

, by Raymond Domenech, Flammarion editions (November 2012)

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