2023-04-16 16:00:00
At the Stade Toulousain training center, young people dream of following in the footsteps of their famous predecessors, Romain Ntamack or Antoine Dupont.
Par Stephane Thepot
On the block. The training center hopefuls in training.
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AT Toulouse, a university town, the Nelson-Mandela amphitheater is undoubtedly the smallest of its kind. Hidden under a stand at the Ernest-Wallon stadium, this pocket amphitheater with around 30 seats is intended for young players from the Stade Toulousain training center who are trying to land their first professional contract. But also a diploma, passport for a retraining of which one rarely thinks when one is 18 years old. “Do you know what the average career length of a rugby player is? », asks Kader M’Barki to seven strong young people in shorts registered in BTS. The answer of this lawyer who came to give an economics course fell like a cold shower: six years! Valérie Vischi-Serraz drives the point home: “After signing his first professional contract, only one out of two players signs a second. »
Dressed in the regulation blazer with the club’s arms, the director of the training center denies playing the killjoy. As a good pro, she also has a mountain of figures and statistics to encourage applicants. The job market for a professional player is the 30 clubs of the Top 14 and the pro D2. That is a pool of nearly 1,200 jobs in France. “No country has so many professional players”, adds Kader M’Barki. The young people have only one idea in mind: to join the flag team of the Toulouse Stadium, where Romain Ntamack (23 years old) or Antoine Dupont (26 years old), their famous predecessors from the training center, already evolve.
Student rugby players. Under the leadership of Michel Marfaing (above), sports director…
… the students, aged 17 to 23… 
… undergo intensive training.
In red and black. They are about thirty, aged 17 to 23, to have been selected under the leadership of Michel Marfaing, sports director. They have physical trainers, their own medical staff with a physiotherapist, dentist, podiatrist, a mental trainer and a psychologist. “It’s day and night compared to my time”, notes the former player. Michel Marfaing joined the first promotion of the club’s training center thirty-five years ago. “It was an innovation that sticks to the DNA of the training club of Stade Toulousain”, underlines Valérie Vischi-Serraz, recruited at the same time to give language lessons. A confirmed sportswoman, this graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Grenoble, passionate about the mountains, admits that she knew nothing about rugby when she arrived at the Stadium. For more than three decades, this little piece of woman has acted as “mother superior” for generations of stewards who have passed through the sport-study section integrated into the club. Sometimes he needs “reframe” young people who think more about their sports performance than their school results.
Rugby was born historically in universities, on the other side of the Channel. Also in Toulouse. “Ernest Wallon, the first president, who gave his name to the stadium, was a law professor”, recalls Jean-Michel Lattes. A lawyer, the deputy mayor of Toulouse hypothesizes that the red and black colors were inspired by the togas of academics. This has never prevented the club from integrating the sons of peasants or workers. Its training center is closer, culturally, to the high schools American than the universities of Oxford or Cambridge.
Succession. Valérie Vischi-Serraz, the director of the Stade Toulousain training center, and the lawyer Kader M’Barki, in front of the young players in BTS.
Pioneering approach. Today, the educational paths of the players are diverse: some are enrolled in engineering schools, others are preparing for a professional baccalaureate. The center also created its own school in 2003 to offer tailor-made training. The commercial management BTS allows young people who have not found their way to spare themselves the horrors of Parcoursup. The course schedules are adapted to intensive training, student rugby players have five years to validate the different units of value of the diploma. The training center took over from the Jolimont high school, whose boarding school traditionally housed all the players in the region in sport-study up to the baccalaureate. Out of this high school “cocoon”, they had to manage.
Stade Toulousain’s pioneering approach to allowing athletes to continue their studies off the pitch has become the norm. All clubs now have their training center. A necessary obligation since rugby has taken the turn of professionalization. Michel Marfaing remembers having visited the facilities of the Auxerre football club, which were a reference in the matter. “I left knowing what not to do”he said.
Here, no one plays “guards” like Guy Roux, who had the reputation of monitoring “his” footballers by forbidding them to go out to nightclubs. Young majors, junior players or hopefuls each have their own apartment. They benefit from total autonomy at the end of lessons and training. Nor is there any question of following the example of football where young people, sometimes coming from afar with the hope of being the Zidane or the Messi of tomorrow, are ejected without regard by a ruthless selection process. At the entrance to the stadium amphitheater, a quote from Nelson Mandela proclaims another philosophy: “I never lose. Either I win or I learn. »“In rugby, players cannot sign a professional contract before the age of 22 anyway”, explains Valérie Vischi-Serraz. The club refrains from too early recruitment of teenagers in colleges and high schools. Agreements have been signed with 44 clubs in the region: no question of selecting the most promising young people before the age of 14§
An international and family promotion
Joël Merkler, 21, left his native Catalonia at the age of 17 to pass his baccalaureate at Déodat-de-Séverac high school and join the training center. Selected in the Spanish national team, this solid pillar of 115 kilos made his debut at Stade Toulouse on October 29, 2022 against Aviron bayonnais and continues his studies at Science Po Toulouse. The workforce of the 2022-2023 promotion has several famous names in the oval. Théo Ntamack, 20, follows in the footsteps of his brother Romain, the French opener. Their father, Émile, a legendary player for the club and the French team, trained the youngsters at the training center for a long time. Joshua Brennan, a promising second row, played his first match in the Top 14 at 18 years old. Born in Dublin in 2001, the young Franco-Irishman has worn the jersey of the France team many times in international competitions reserved for 16-20 year olds. His brother Daniel, who plays in Brive, had also signed a “hopeful” contract with the Stade before leaving for Montpellier§ S. T.
LYDIE LECARPENTIER/REA/ FOR “LE POINT” (x3) – Lydie LECARPENTIER/REA FOR “LE POINT” (x4)
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