At 65, Gérard Prêcheur has been the technical director of SM Caen since this summer. Became a coach at 29, responsible for INF Clairefontaine when Kylian Mbappé was learning there, loaded with trophies with the OL women's team (three French Cups, three French championships and two Champions Leagues), he came explain his functions within the Caen club and the ambitions of its main shareholder for the first time in the show Allo Malherbe.
His coming to Caen: “immediately it matched with Kylian and his mother”
“The experience at PSG had been difficult but very rewarding. I returned to Southern Ardèche. My wife and I decided to spend our retirement there. And we met Kylian's mother, Fayza, during a French team match in Marseille. She asked me where I was and what I wanted to do. She told me that she would contact me again and I received a phone call where she presented the project to me and suggested a slightly more formal meeting to present the project they had in mind. When I mentioned the project with Fayza and Kylian, in the seconds following the first exchanges, it clicked straight away. We had a truly common desire to place football at the heart of the club's general policy. And then I was very honored to be contacted by Kylian and his mother. Right away, I felt that it was an opportunity for me as well to be able to come full circle and come back and finish with the boys where I had started and to put into action all the experience that I had acquired throughout. along my rather long journey.“
His role as technical director of SM Caen
“I could summarize this mission by saying that, when Stade Malherbe Caen reaches Ligue 1, it will never go down. This means that he needs structures, that he needs to raise the bar in many areas. I had the opportunity to evolve professionally in major institutions: fourteen years thanks to Aimé Jacquet, at the National Technical Directorate where I rubbed shoulders with great coaches also with this search for excellence, in major clubs, at Olympique Lyonnais and PSG. The mission is, with all the high-level components that I have had the opportunity to know and understand, to be able to bring Stade Malherbe Caen closer to the best and therefore to excellence. There is the aspect at the structural level and the aspect at the human level.“
What has already been implemented among the pros
“When I arrived at the end of July, I carried out an audit of the situation. I noted without making the slightest judgment in relation to what had been done before that a high-level component such as nutrition was not an integral part of SM Caen I alerted management and we hired an experienced chef. Today, nutrition is an integral part of training. Another example, in the analysis of indoor infrastructures, it was bad. arranged with a very small weight room, And there it There has been extraordinary responsiveness thanks to the municipality, the club and the shareholders and from next Thursday we will be able to open the doors to the new weight room. In my opinion, the players will be pleasantly surprised by the developments. During training, I noticed that the players were training without the staff being able to quantify the load in real time, whether in training or in matches. We set up the acquisition of 40 to 60 GPS devices. be more efficient and also reduce risks of injuries. I set up a performance unit with the arrival of an athletic trainer (Jean-Marc Branger), with me, the doctor and the video analyst.”
What has already been implemented during training
“The resources were more on a human level. I really congratulate them for being able to evolve as they did with so few people in the past but at what cost! I felt it was a strong price What was important to me was that to approach excellence in terms of training, everyone had to be able to evolve in a context favorable to their performance before considering performance, progression and performance. development of young players. Thanks to management and shareholders. was also able to hire a full-time physiotherapist for training, more focused on rehabilitation, we were able to hire two video analysts for individual monitoring of the players. We also welcomed the return of Laurent Lesgent, whom I had known as a player. trainer to make the link between training and pre-training We also hired another goalkeeper coach, Frédéric Petereyns, with broader missions. We gave the training the means to have a strong team to be able to develop. THE cursor to be among the best.”
The women's section: finding partners to become pro
“Today the women's section of SM Caen is at the amateur level. No player receives the slightest compensation. I alerted the management. I told them where we are giving the means to this women's section to become professional and that has a cost that I have already estimated. That is to say that we will have to hire I believe that we have the right to a maximum of eight player conventions to be able to become professional and access D2. no, that's the question. The president's response was very clear: “Listen Gérard, it will be one of my priorities to find a partner or two to be able to meet your needs. If it's before Christmas, I'll say it's great. We could start in January. Otherwise we will postpone it for a few months.”
An attentive shareholder: Kylian Mbappé
“I spoke to him on the phone at the beginning and now it's a little more delicate period. His arrival in Madrid is not that simple. It's been some time since I spoke to him directly but It is planned that we will get back in touch in the coming days. His great desire is to come to Ornano to see SM Caen. I know that today his coming to Caen is not that simple. towards the leaders of Réal Madrid. In any case, it's his will. Know that he watches all the professional matches, that's for sure. We were even able to discuss it at the start, but I'm convinced that as soon as he has the opportunity, he will. will come.
