Matthieu Péché and Gauthier Klauss at Vitality -
Vitality
Every Thursday, in its “off-field” section, “20 Minutes” explores new spaces of expression of sport, unexpected, unusual, clever or in full swing.
Gauthier Klauss and Matthieu Péché, Olympic medalists in canoe-kayak, are now managers at Vitality, the largest e-sport group in France.
They tell us how they got to esports and what they are trying to bring to players.
We left them in September 2018, with a video in which they symbolically cut their canoe in half to mark the end of an adventure started 20 years earlier.
Mathieu Péché and Gauthier Klauss, bronze medalists at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and world champions a year later in Pau, had no choice but to stop.
Their discipline, C2, was purely and simply wiped off the map by the International Federation.
Two years later, a change of scenery.
No more fresh air and swimming pools, here are the two friends gathered at Vitality, one of the biggest e-sport structures in the world.
Matthieu Péché, general manager of the Counter-Strike section, arrived in June 2019. Gauthier Klauss joined him last November to take charge of the Fortnite and Rocket League teams.
How did these former top athletes make the jump into this new world?
What do they bring?
We interviewed them at the Stade de France, where “Vita” has taken up residence since last year.
Have you been talking about meeting at Vitality for a long time?
Gauthier Klauss:
At the end of our career, we had talked a bit about it with Matthieu, we said to ourselves that e-sport was a growing area, with crazy potential.
It interested us but at no time did we say that we would go together to Vitality.
It was not concrete.
Personally, I met Fabien [Fabien “Neo” Devide, founder and director of the structure with Nicolas Maurer] at Arnaud Assoumani [2008 Paralympic long jump champion].
I told him that if one day he needed to structure himself, a sports director or other, I was motivated to get involved.
You both wanted, for your post-career, to have a role like that of sports director? Not necessarily in e-sport by the way ...
Matthieu Péché:
It was not premeditated for me this role of manager.
I had an appetite for esports, I got caught up in the game watching the LoL Worlds [the League of Legends world championships] for example, but I was not too aware of the magnitude that it had.
Then I was curious to see how it was inside, and "Neo" contacted me.
There was this opportunity to become manager of CS: GO [Counter Strike global offensive], because whoever was in position was leaving and they wanted to look for something else, to see a little further.
Like us in traditional sport, there is a time when we all have the same level and we look for the little thing that will make the difference.
E-sport is there in its history, they try to look at what is done elsewhere, especially in terms of training, rigor, living environment.
GK:
For my part, what I'm looking for is emotion, belong to a group, get perf and become the best in the world in a field.
Do you have to get rid of pejorative images that you may have before you get into e-sport?
GK:
I had some prejudices, a bit like everyone else I think - and there are a lot of them that still have them - but I was convinced deep down that there was potential and things to be do, that the picture was not as black as it could be painted.
That's why I dug, that I went to get some info.
MP:
For my part, I didn't necessarily have any prejudices, it's just that I didn't know any of that.
So it interested me, not just watching guys play, but seeing how they were preparing, how it worked.
I said ok for the job on a Sunday, and on Monday I was off to a
bootcamp
where the players were gathered.
I arrived in a world where guys spoke a language unknown to me.
It's like when you arrive in a company, with a vocabulary of its own, you have to learn to master it.
I played, too, to understand where the guys go, what they go through, to see where I could support and set up a working method.
How do you acquire the codes?
MP:
It's going pretty quickly after all, and you have to because it's you who comes into their world so it's up to you to adapt.
And then you bring pieces of your world to make them evolve.
It is not my vocation to make them become super athletes who lift 150 kg on the bench press.
That's not the goal of the game. They were already performing well before I arrived, my goal is for them to do so in the long term, by bringing little extras.
Our coaches used to say that you always have to do a little more than the others, and above all, do it better.
What do you bring them? Support for performance?
MP:
That's it.
A frame.
Set schedules, give them short and medium term goals, and explain why they are getting up.
This morning it's going to be sport at 10 o'clock, why?
This noon we are going to eat 12 hours, why this time and not 13 hours?
Because we adapt to the next day, where there is a match at 4 p.m., we will have to have digested.
Why go back to the hotel at 8 p.m. and not at 11 p.m.?
Because you have to rest, and the hours before midnight are the most important.
We take the basics and explain it to them.
It may seem like small details, but all that explains why afterwards we will be better than the others.
GK:
Sometimes I feel like they take some games a bit lightly.
I want to change that.
When I get up in the morning, it's match day!
You're hot, you want to put on your direct swimsuit ... I want them to adopt this state of mind permanently.
Right now I'm bringing them a lot of things about the pre-match, debriefings, etc.
They have some deficiencies there.
Matthieu and I are real competitors.
We will look at the end of the day, all we can, that's what we have always done in our career.
It is only the number 1 spot that counts.
That's what we want to convey to the players.
The second thing is to protect them in their lifestyle.
It ties in with what Matthieu said.
The framework we provide them, because they do not realize the energy they spend playing, that their careers can be short, precisely because they give a lot and they can run out of steam very quickly.
Their fatigue, unlike ours in "traditional" sports, is above all cognitive, linked to stress.
We must enlighten them on this.
The third aspect is to bring them on a long performance.
It is sometimes complicated because with the old methods, a little more archaic, they have already obtained incredible results, in particular a world champion title, but besides that there are irregularities in the performance, that is, is this that I want to correct.
Is it complicated to unplug in e-sport?
GK:
Yeah, and really, they don't realize.
We must enlighten them on this.
MP:
For me that was one of the most complicated things to make them understand.
Sometimes I tell them "before noon, you will not have access to your PCs".
They are forbidden, and they are told to do other things, read a book, discuss, play ping-pong [a table is set up in the training center].
But with them it must be the same.
Saying that to a kid of 17, 18 or 19 is complicated.
You have to guide them, make them understand that there are other things in life.
It requires individualized support.
I have 17, 25 or 30 year old players.
They are not at the same time in their life, they do not have the same desires, so we must support them.
The Klauss-Péché tandem won Olympic bronze on August 11, 2016 in Rio.
- Carl DE SOUZA / AFP
In this preparation, what do you take from your previous career and what do you have to invent?
GK:
We arrive with our philosophy of life, as an athlete.
I try to transmit it as much as possible.
However, I don't want to impose anything.
Each time, I propose.
I tell them "be sponges, I am arriving with my baggage, all the questions you have asked them, take whatever you have to take, it will save you time".
But I also tell them that I am arriving in their world, I immerse myself in it, there are things that we cannot transpose and the objective is that we make our recipe for us, together.
Find the right balance between what I bring and the world of e-sport, so that we find our "Vitality method".
MP:
I did a bit of the reverse.
I arrived and I imposed.
Also because unlike Gauthier, I had a team of five, and even six now, I couldn't do an individual.
So I was dry from the start, I made them understand that they had to get involved, that there was no time to mess around.
Only then, I let go of the ballast and individualized.
Did that create shocks, friction with your players, because their daily life was upset?
GK: Right
now they're experiencing mini electroshocks, I think, but I've never faced a wall before.
On the other hand in their intellectual approach there is still work, some are still not convinced that we can be better outside.
These are mentalities to change.
MP:
So at first it was a culture shock, completely.
My operation and that of the former manager, it was day and night in terms of philosophy.
I felt a few brakes, it was a bit hot at times, but the important thing is to always explain to them why they are doing such and such a thing.
As long as we explain to them how it will help them in the game… Because in the game, ultimately, I have no power because I don't know anything about it.
This is the role of the coach.
I am a coach of ...
GK
(cuts)
:
Of life!
(laughs)
MP:
Yes it is a bit like that.
Coach of everything outside the game. I am there for them, they know it and as soon as there is a problem, when they have a question, I am there.
Sport and e-sport are often opposed. Do you have the feeling that you are proving that it can be complementary?
MP:
It must (he insists on this word) be complementary, even.
Many athletes play, without the competitive side, and all e-athletes must take up sport to complete their work on the game. On Counter-Strike, we can do finals that last four or five hours, if you want that. your brain is working, your body must be healthy.
The heart must be on top.
So yes, it's a daily job.
But it's not just that, there is also the school.
It's a whole.
An e-athlete is not just someone with his computer, it must be the athlete 3.0.
We have to help them move towards that anyway.
GK:
There are people who separate the two, who say that sport and e-sport have nothing to do with it.
The majority of the population thinks like this.
When I explain to some friends that I'm going to do this or that to my players, they tell me that if the guy is good at the game, who cares if he weighs 100 kg and does anything what in terms of food ...
And you answer them what?
GK:
That I am convinced of the opposite!
Indeed, with a healthy lifestyle like that, the guy will be able to deploy super
skills
for an hour, but it will not last.
It's the same as in sports.
People are not aware of this, and often neither are the players.
Me, at the beginning, I did not speak of "my players" but of "my athletes".
I wondered if it was a language flaw or not.
In fact, that's what they should become.
Is the word athlete only dedicated to traditional sport or can it be used in esports?
For me, yes.
An athlete is someone who performs in a competition, who prepares for it, every day.
So it's not a language error.
This is the direction of evolution of esports for many months now, right? Is there you, Yannick Agnel, Julien Benneteau… More and more former athletes are entering this environment and participating in this development?
MP:
Yes, after that is it the world of e-sport which is asking and which opened the breach, or is it us, a new generation of athletes who have appetite for e-sport and seeing the bridges between these two worlds, I could not say.
I have in mind the example of Astralis [a Danish team, among the best in the world], who went to seek Kasper Hvidt, the former goalkeeper of the national handball team, for the post of sports director.
Since he's been there, they've been a hit.
It was he who opened the breach.
So far, it works.
Will this still be the case a year from now?
Are we going to get, I don't know, a fighter pilot to train the guys' vision?
There is always plenty to do.
We will continue to evolve.
GK:
What brings us closer, I think, is the pleasure of the game, of the beautiful gesture, while seeking competition.
And that's the same thing in sport and esports.
How do you see the development of Vitality?
MP:
We are a bit of a spectator of this dazzling development.
I returned more than a year ago, they were in a business incubator at station F and today they have a base on Boulevard de Sébastopol, a center at the Stade de France, and when you also see the number of people who follow them, fans on the networks, that impresses me a lot.
We are part of a beautiful family, I think, and a big team.
We feel supported, there is a real enthusiasm.
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