The Mbappé clan has already revolutionized the Stade Malherbe in Caen

Kylian Mbappé is an all-terrain player. This season, the former Bondy player joined Real Madrid to realize and live his life's dream. But everything is not going very well for the Frenchman, who must find his place on the pitch and more broadly in Carlo Ancelotti's group. At the same time, the Frenchman has a series of disappointments, whether in the French team, where his case raises eyebrows, and in private, where he is at the center of an investigation for an alleged sexual assault which allegedly took place during his stay in Stockholm, Sweden in October. This Monday, the former Paris Saint-Germain player is being talked about for something completely different. Indeed, it is his role and his project within the Stade Malherbe de Caen which is causing ink to flow. A few months ago, KM9 bought the Norman club, via its image company Interconnected Ventures.

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Mbappé does not let go of Caen one step

A new project that is close to his heart according to Gérard Prêcheur (65), who has held the role of technical director of Caen since last summer. This is what the man who knew Mbappé told INF Clairefontaine during an interview given during the show “Garlic Malherbe” on France Blue Normandy. “I spoke to him on the phone at the beginning and now it’s a slightly more delicate period. His arrival in Madrid is not that simple. It's been a while since I've had him live but we plan to 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, with regard to the leaders of Réal Madrid. In any case, it is his will. Know that he watches all the professional matches, that's for sure. We were even able to discuss it at the restart, but I am convinced that as soon as he has the opportunity, he will come.

Close to the Mbappé clan, Prêcheur was also recruited by Fayza Lamari, the player's mother. “The experience at PSG was 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. »

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First changes at the club

He continues: “Immediately, 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 while throughout my rather long journey.” Subsequently, he spoke at length about his role in 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.”

He adds: “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 (…) When I arrived at the end of July, I carried out an audit of the situation. I note without making the slightest judgment in relation to what has been done before that a component for me of the high level such as nutrition is not an integral part of SM Caen. I alert management and we hire an experienced chef. Today, nutrition is an integral part of training. Another example, in the analysis of the indoor infrastructure, it was poorly arranged with a very small weight room. And there was 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.

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Helping Caen to progress and develop

Preacher develops: “In my opinion, the players will be pleasantly surprised by the developments. Third example, 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 have implemented the acquisition of 40 to 60 GPS to be more efficient and also reduce the risk of injury. I set up a performance unit with the arrival of an athletic trainer (Jean-Marc Branger), with me, the doctor and the video analyst. In addition to the development of the women's section of the club, which must find partners to professionalize itself according to him, the DT of the Norman club mentioned the training center. And he wasted no time putting things in place so Caen could build on that.

“The resources were more on the 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 development. young players. Thanks to management and shareholders. We were also able to hire a full-time physiotherapist for training, more focused on rehabilitation, and 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 trainer, to make the link between training and pre-training. We also hired another goalkeeping coach, Frédéric Petereyns, with broader missions. We gave the team the means to have a strong team to be able to raise the bar to be among the best.” Mbappé's Caen, currently 14th in L2, does not want to leave anything to chance and intends to do everything possible to progress and return to the elite as quickly as possible.