2023-04-29 17:00:06
In the register of the language of wood, the world of professional football is largely worth that of politics. But if it were necessary to designate a conductor who clashed at the time of the media training and batteries of communication advisers, the name of Antoine Kombouaré would be appropriate.
“We have a shitty team”, released the coach of FC Nantes after the defeat of his team at Auxerre (2-1), in the French championship, on April 16. Ten days earlier, the 59-year-old coach had provoked the hilarity of journalists by responding “I don’t give a damn! » to a question about his uncertain future on the club’s bench.
The character is separate. He does not care about his media image, is not in the promotion, nor a great theoretician of the game. Antoine Kombouaré also publicly assumes his positions when he is questioned on sensitive subjects, such as the sidelining of a player who fasts during Ramadan or the “Christophe Galtier affair”, his counterpart from Paris Saint-Germain accused of having made racist remarks when he was coaching OGC Nice.
At the end of the 2022-2023 season, the Nantes people are flirting with the relegation zone of Ligue 1. But the prospect of a second consecutive title in the Coupe de France titillates the faithful of the Canaries, who still have in mind the beautiful European evenings in recent months – the winner secures direct qualification for the group stage of the next edition of the Europa League.
Saturday April 29, at the Stade de France (Seine-Saint-Denis), FC Nantes finds Toulouse in the final… a club where Antoine Kombouaré had barely lasted two months as coach during the 2019-2020 financial year. The native of Nouméa, in New Caledonia, will still be able to let his sincerity speak, he who had commented, tremolos in his voice, the victory of his troops, last year, against Nice.
At odds with its president
Monument of French football, FC Nantes was sinking steeply towards Ligue 2 when the Kanak took control of the team in February 2021. Thanks to a maintenance stalled in extremis, he continued his mission, succeeding in transfigure the face of the collective the following season. The association between Kombouaré and the president shareholder of the club, Waldemar Kita, however seemed improbable: on the one hand, an intransigent coach; on the other, an intrusive boss who has wrung out many of his coaches – nineteen changes in fourteen seasons, including interims. A little over two years later, the atypical couple lives on… but neither of them can stand each other.
You have 62.97% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#Antoine #Kombouaré #general #put #Nantes #working #order