Four days before France-Israel at the Stade de France and after the attack suffered by Maccabi Tel-Aviv supporters in Amsterdam, RMC Sport went to the football fields of the Val-de-Marne district and met Maccabi Sarcelles and Maccabi Créteil, two clubs from the Jewish community.
Sunday morning, Parc des Sports du Tremblay in Champigny-sur-Marne, the four synthetic fields are occupied. On one side, a field of young children from U7 to U10, an inter-Maccabi tournament which brings together several Ile-de-France clubs which bear the Maccabi name. The reason for creating this competition is simple: the children's games organized by the leagues and districts take place on Saturday, Shabbat day for the Jewish community. The Maccabi of Île-de-France have therefore decided to organize their own championship.
“There should be no confusion, prejudices or bad thoughts. It’s just that football, sport, is on Sunday for us,” explains Charly Elmaleh, head of the football school at Maccabi Sarcelles. ” On the current context, the manager of the Val d'Oise club welcomes the ever-present living together: “You should know that Sarcelles is one of the cities in France with the most different ethnic groups. Everyone lives next to each other without major problems. On Sunday morning, we play at the Riyad Mahrez stadium. AS Sarcelles is next door and everything is going very well.
Players of all faiths
On the other side of the Parc des Sports, the veterans of Maccabi Créteil play away against Saint-Mandé. Mickaël Pinto is 39 years old, 26 of which he spent every week with Maccabi Créteil. He does not see a rise in anti-Semitism in Sunday football. “Honestly, there is no problem, specifies the number 6 of the yellows and blues. There is generally a bubble around football. It remains a little impervious to tension. After October 7, we did a minute of silence which was respected by all the teams. We have players who are of Muslim or Christian faith, there have never been any problems with that. We wear the Magen David, everyone knows us. “No problem.”
Along the touchline, David Biars, coach of D2, must act as assistant referee rather than coaching from the bench. Fifteen years of undergraduate studies at Maccabi Créteil without having been confronted with violence against his religion. “To be honest, after October 7, there was a little apprehension. It's legitimate, because we still wear the Star of David. We play a lot of heterogeneous, multicultural teams. We quickly realized , and not only since October 7, but even before Charlie, football remains a small bubble, and that's good. With intelligent people, we can only talk about football. It still remains fragile. also not have blinders. But in our club, there are Muslims, Christians, Franco-Portuguese people. We integrate everyone and people see that we are not too communitarian. For the record, the veterans of Maccabi Créteil won 2-1 against Saint-Mandé.
