• Former pro footballer Gaël Danic has created a padel complex which opens this Wednesday in Bruz, near Rennes.

  • Trained at Stade Rennais, the native of Vannes ended his career in Saint-Malo at the age of 39 before embarking on the padel adventure.

  • This racquet sport is very popular in Spain and is gaining notoriety in France, thanks to its playfulness.

Bruz soccer regulars will have noticed the difference. In recent weeks, the hangar which housed three indoor soccer fields has been fitted with an imposing panel installed on the facade which reads: “Breizh Padel”. Inside, the football cages have given way to five padel courts, a racquet sport very popular in Spain and which hopes to conquer France. This project was born in the mind of a man well known in the world of French football. Trained at Stade Rennais, Gaël Danic played nearly 600 pro games, including 400 in Ligue 1.

Passed by Valenciennes, Lyon, Guingamp, Lorient or even Bastia, the 39-year-old midfielder ended his career with a final freelance in Saint-Malo (National 2) truncated by the suspension of the amateur championships due to Covid-19.

On February 16, Gaël Danic may have played his last match in the Coupe de France elimination against Saint-Brieuc.

Less than four months later, the very young retiree found a new sport: padel.

“It's a very fun sport and accessible to everyone.

It's a mix of tennis, badminton and squash where you have to play with your head.

It's a very addictive game, ”summarizes the former attacking midfielder.

He discovered padel with Nolan Roux and Rio Mavuba

This sport practiced by more than a million Spaniards, Gaël Danic discovered it ten years ago, when he was playing in Valenciennes. “I lived in Lille and was a neighbor of Nolan Roux. We were going to play with Florent Balmont and Rio Mavuba (the three were playing at Losc at the time) in one of the first padel halls in France. At the time, no one knew. We loved it! », Summarizes the native of Vannes. Spectacular sport, padel is played in doubles on a field surrounded by partitions where rebounds are allowed, like in squash. Associated with Gwen Jarnot, an old friend of his, Gaël Danic decided to settle in Rennes, where his wife is from and where he lived all his adolescence. Some land already exists but not in this southern part of the Breton capital.

This Wednesday, the left-hander will take advantage of the national reopening of sports halls to open his padel complex for the first time. And to see the bookings which accumulate, the demand is there. Its website being a little late in the ignition, it is even Gaël Danic himself who takes the reservations. “I am fully in this project! Since I joined the Stade Rennais training center when I was 13, I have been conditioned by adrenaline. But I always thought about the post-career. I wanted to do something quickly, so as not to think about it ”. He who won Euro 2000 under 18 with Philippe Mexès and Djibril Cissé sees himself perfectly in this welcoming role. “I like to discuss, exchange. What I want is for people to come here to relax, to think about something else ”. If you feel like it,you can even challenge the former midfielder. But we warn you, he hates losing! “I've always been like that,” he slips with a smile. There are things that don't change.

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