2023-06-04 01:25:14
He manages to contain his emotion but it is there very close, ready to emerge at the bend of a look a little too strong. For him, the adventure is over. On a lost derby. Eliminated in the play-off from the Top 14 by Racing (20-33) this Saturday on his Jean-Bouin lawn, Gonzalo Quesada leaves the Stade Français which he had joined in 2020. Disappointment and sadness mix with a certain pride. The Argentinian leaves a club in a much better situation than the one he found when he arrived three years ago, but he will not have managed to lead him to the title of champion of France as he was able to do in 2015 during his first passage from 2013 to 2017.
“My main idea is to cut a little”
“Of course it’s a shame,” he said. I’m disappointed because I’ll never know what would have happened if we hadn’t played 14 against 15 (Editor’s note: from the 6th minute). There is a bit of pride all the same because we knew how to react. We will have to take stock later. Obviously, we dreamed of going a little further. We thought it was possible. The story ends there. It’s difficult. »
The coach, whose fate was sealed in early October by its president Hans-Peter Wild, planing his one-season contract to recruit Laurent Labit and Karim Ghezal, Fabien Galthié’s assistants, just after the World Cup (September 8 – October 28), measures the strength of these few months spent with a close-knit workforce behind him. “If we had said at the beginning of October that we would reach the dams, we would not necessarily have believed it, he underlines. Despite all this instability, I am very proud of this group, of this staff, who have remained loyal and committed. Returning to the fate reserved for him by his leaders, he lets go: “I had done everything to be treated differently. »
As Laurent Travers listens to him answer questions in the press room, the Argentinian turns to the Racing manager. “As I said to Toto (Travers) at the end of the match, my main idea is to cut a little, explains Gonzalo Quesada. I still want to train, I think I’m better than when I arrived here. It’s not a lack of energy but you have to choose your project carefully. Besides, I notice seeing the contacts I have lately, that it’s when you don’t want to do something that you become attractive. I leave in peace. In Spanish, the expression does not mean that I am going to die but that I am leaving with the feeling of accomplishment. »
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