"Follow us," reads the sparkling blue entrance to Dakar Sacré-Coeur football club.
For some time now, the club, located right in the middle of the Senegalese capital, has been making its way into local football, taking advantage of the infrastructure that has just been renovated: two artificial turf training pitches at eleven - including one blue, the the club's favorite color – a smaller one for five-on-five matches and a bodybuilding area.
Enough to allow this club, which relies on training, to offer the best to recruits who push its door.
The facade of the Dakar Sacré-Coeur © Romain Houeix, France 24
On February 6, 2022, Senegal was celebrating.
After 61 years of waiting, the Teranga Lions lifted their first trophy in Yaoundé, Cameroon, by winning CAN-2022 against Egypt.
A historic victory in which local football played its part: if African selections are often used to fueling binationals trained in Europe, the Lions can boast of having sixteen players trained on the continent in their ranks.
And the Dakar Sacré-Coeur played its part, notably by contributing to the training of Famara Diedhiou and Moustapha Name.
Senegal has talent to export.
And the French Ligue 1 clubs made no mistake about it by forging privileged links with three local "Academies": Génération Foot with FC Metz, Diambars FC with OM and, therefore, the Dakar Sacré-Coeur with the 'OL.
>> To read: Sadio Mané, from Génération Foot in Senegal to the African Golden Ball
Between them, these three teams – in constant competition in the Senegalese first division thanks to their young players – have formed ten African champions 2022 and not the least emblematic.
Among them, Sadio Mané, Idrissa Gana Gueye or Bamba Dieng.
🏆 Thank you also to our training clubs in Senegal who have produced 57% of African Champions Lions... Special mention to Generation Foot and Diambars 👍🏾🇸🇳https://t.co/dEwZiZNCMp#Senegal #Kebetu #wiwsport # CAN2021 pic.twitter.com/WOzrmKT01l
— wiwsport.com 🇸🇳⭐ (@wiwsport_) February 13, 2022
The Senegalese press may call the trio "the Academicians", but the qualifier does not please the president of DSC.
"We are not an academy but a club", rectifies with a smile Matthieu Chupin, president and founder of the Dakar club, who receives France 24 in his office overlooking the grounds.
"A training club certainly, but a club with the ambition to become a great African club."
A unique financing model
This club is the baby of its president.
This entrepreneur, who has worked for more than three decades in Senegalese football, could talk about it for hours.
The original idea dates back to 2003 and his encounter with the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, a religious congregation dedicated to educating young people around the world.
The Brothers then had at their disposal 2.5 hectares of land in the heart of Dakar.
Matthieu Chupin convinced them of his project.
Dakar Sacré-Coeur officially saw the light of day in 2005, but it took another five years of work before activities really began.
Today, to stand out, the president has an innovative financing model in mind.
"We don't want to depend on professional activity and player transfers. Our club is therefore based on three complementary pillars: professional football, with a professional team for girls and boys and a training center; football -leisure, with the rental of our land which attracts 8,000 practitioners per week; and finally the community aspect, because a club can only be sport" to create links in the neighborhood, lists Matthieu Chupin.
"60% of our turnover is based on the rental of our leisure football pitches", he specifies.
The club experienced its first consecration in 2015 when Olympique Lyonnais knocked on the door for a partnership.
"It's not just about hiring our players. It's about a real transfer of skills between the two clubs", explains the founding president.
"It's a very rich partnership," he boasts.
"DSC is my second family"
Under its windows, the young pros train in the outdoor gym and on machines provided by OL.
Smiles and jokes burst out, proof of a good atmosphere in the professional group.
Moussa Kanté, 17, is notably put in a box.
Because of his small size, the young man with orange hair is given the nickname "Kirikou".
If the club has a partnership with OL, it is nevertheless the other French Olympique – Marseille – which makes the young man dream.
He would like to go "like Bamba Dieng".
To achieve this, the young man thinks he knows the recipe: "Work hard, be rigorous and stay focused on training".
His comrade Abdourahmane Mahecor Diouf shares his convictions.
The 21-year-old defensive midfielder adds that you have to "be mentally tough" to break into football.
Like his teammate, he dreams of crossing the Mediterranean to play on the Old Continent, notably at FC Barcelona, his favorite club which has seen his idols Thiago Motta and Lionel Messi pass through.
"My dream is to play in Europe. But already, I never thought that I would one day be a professional in my country. So it's ok", he says with a smile, hoping that after a test inconclusive to integrate a team in Turkey, another chance will come.
Both young men have been at the club for over a decade.
They went through the ranks of the football school, then the training center, before joining the first team.
They are true children of the Sacred Heart.
"It makes me happy to represent DSC every weekend", explains Moussa.
"I learned a lot here. I grew up here. It's my second family," adds Abdourahmane. "Training centers like DSC are a chance for Senegal. It teaches us a lot of things before leaving for Europe. "
Abdourahmane Mahecor Diouf, defensive midfielder for Dakar Sacré-Coeur © Romain Houeix, France 24
The two players train under the watchful eye of David Laubertie, 52, sporting director and coach of the professional team since 2020. A double role that he wears wonderfully, able to divide his days between field work and office.
"I am the guarantor of the club's sports policy in its entirety," he explains.
"In the morning, I'm on the pitch and in the afternoon it's more administrative with player contracts, relationships with families, refining training methods," he lists.
He also manages relations with OL: "We have a weekly update with them and they monitor a list of potential players with us. They also visit us two or three times a year."
Often dressed in capri pants and a gray t-shirt with the club logo, his initials and the words "staff pro" on the back, this native of Corréz communicates a lot during training.
He does not hesitate to interrupt an opposition game to reframe his "kids": "You don't change your pace enough. You only play in transition. At this pace, I have to take out the midfielders at the end of 'a quarter of an hour. Take your time to build your attack and be able to hit as a whole, "he instructs.
The faces are attentive to listen to the remonstrances of the French.
Assist the player off the field
The Dakar Sacré-Coeur also aims to help young potential to express themselves.
While players usually join professional groups around the age of 20, it is not uncommon to see young people aged 16 or 17 in the big leagues of the Dakar Sacré-Coeur, like Moussa Kanté.
In these conditions, it is sometimes difficult to be competitive in the championship, the young players sometimes still lacking experience and athleticism.
Since rising to the top flight in 2016, the club have alternated between upper belly flab and flirting with the limits of relegation.
"We try to compensate by playing good football, being technically clean. We make sure that our players know how to master the game and different systems. The young people who leave must have this knowledge in their luggage", notes David Laubertie.
When DSC coach and athletic director David Laubertie speaks.
Everyone listens carefully.
© Romain Houeix, France 24
What happens to the players after their time at DSC is constantly at the heart of the reflections carried out by the duo at the head of the club.
"Leaving the Dakar Sacré-Coeur for Europe should not be an end in itself for our players. It should be a first step in the professional world", warns David Laubertie.
"Once there, there is necessarily a time to adapt to the new environment. It is daily work to warn them of the dangers and the changes that this entails. We try to raise their awareness as much as possible".
The club is trying to work with trusted agents and is setting up a monitoring network for these former players with OL, led by Sidney Govou.
Matthieu Chupin is also keeping a close eye on the experiments carried out in several European clubs to help young Africans adapt to Europe, in particular that of Salzburg which has set up host families.
OL are also working on the subject, carrying out sociological studies to try to identify a typology of family profiles more likely to break into professional football.
Senegal, "extraordinary potential"
"There is an exceptional reservoir in Senegal. You have to try to structure all that," explains David Laubertie.
"The important thing is to preserve the spontaneity and creativity of local players while capitalizing on their athletic and mental qualities."
However, the club president regrets the weakness of public policies to bring Senegal to the top of African sport.
"We are all very happy with the performance of the national team but to be successful in the long term, we should invest in local football", notes the manager.
Whether through President Macky Sall or his Minister of Sports, Matar Bâ, the Senegalese government has repeatedly mentioned in recent years the desire to make Dakar a "sports hub".
Mbaye Jacques Diop, communication adviser to the Ministry of Sports, repeated it again during the inauguration of the new Senegal stadium in Diamniadio.
"[Cette] new construction is part of a dynamic to make Dakar 'a sports hub' in order to prevent matches from being relocated to Asia," he said.
>> To read: hybrid lawn and solar energy… Senegal's ultra-modern Abdoulaye-Wade stadium
"There is extraordinary potential in Senegal so the objective [to make it a sports hub] is completely legitimate", notes Matthieu Chupon.
"But beyond the rhetoric, the state must realize that it needs the private sector to achieve its ends. It requires massive investment in training, infrastructure and competitions. This should be a priority national."
The Dakar club is a glaring example.
Although its training grounds have been renovated thanks to club funds, it no longer has an approved stadium nearby to play its home matches: the Demba-Diop enclosure, a few hundred meters from its headquarters, remains unusable. since 2017 after the collapse of a stand that claimed the lives of several supporters and injured a hundred others.
"There are no TV rights from the broadcast of the championship either," recalls Matthieu Chupin.
development projects
In the absence of help from the public authorities, Dakar Sacré-Coeur is moving forward and multiplying the projects.
In 2017, she launched the female counterpart of her professional team.
"It just made sense when you're associated with the best club in the world in this area," says David Laubertie.
The results are already there.
An accession to the first division in 2018 then a title of champion of Senegal in 2021 which opens the doors to the preliminary round of the first Women's Champions League in the history of the continent.
To read: INTEGRATE LINK Women's football: "Mentalities are changing in Senegal"
Matthieu Chupin, who cannot imagine football without social development, thinks big.
After having renovated its grounds, it is currently eyeing on additional grounds of the Sacré-Coeur college.
“These grounds will be used for college PE lessons but would also allow us to move towards an extension of our establishment by offering sport-leisure in more disciplines in the evenings, weekends and school holidays”, explains the president. -founder.
True to his credo, Matthieu Chupin also wants to develop training.
“On the one hand, we have a lot of requests from parents for sports-study classes. So we would like to extend our proposals”, he explains. “On the other hand, we would like to create an academy of the sport.
Because around football, there are plenty of jobs that require training and there is nowhere where they are offered in Senegal, whether in security or in maintenance...Here, people who don't occupy are the former construction workers.
They learned on the job."
Finally, the president ultimately wants to separate Dakar Sacré-Coeur into two sites.
The second, which will take place in the greater suburbs of Dakar, will be dedicated to professional sport, extending to sports other than football, in particular basketball – the country's other top discipline.
Matthieu Chupin is convinced of this: the future of DSC is written in blue and in multisport.
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