Interview
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In a sport where field players are visually impaired, goalkeepers have full visual abilities. “Libé” discussed this special role with the two goalkeepers of Les Bleus, before their first match at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, Sunday, September 1.
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Blind football is based on a paradox. An adaptation of football for the visually impaired and blind, the discipline is reserved for people who are blind, or almost. On the field, the eight field players (four in each team) can only find their way around by noise, their eyes blocked by an obstructing mask. But the goalkeepers do not have the slightest handicap: they have all their visual abilities.
The importance of communication but also of silence, stereotypes about players’ performance, the ability to be “ultra-reactive” to strong and precise strikes… Before the kick-off of the French team’s first match on Sunday, September 1, Liberation discussed this very special role with Alessandro Bartolomucci and Benoît Chevreau de Montléhu, the two French goalkeepers.
How did you start blind football?
Alessandro Bartolomucci : I discovered the discipline completely by chance, in 2019. I was in my second year of a master’s degree in Staps [Sciences et techniques des activités physiques et sportives, ndlr] and I was doing an internship at the Girondins de Bordeaux where I was in charge of the goalkeepers at the pre-training center. One of the coaches knew someone at the French Paralympic Sports Federation and told me that they were looking for
