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Journalist
After trying different sports, Thibault turned to a career as an amateur footballer. When making a choice between becoming a professional footballer and a journalist, the qualities tipped the scales to one side. Here he is now in the editorial staff of 10 Sport, after a diploma obtained at the International Institute of Communication in Paris.
For several years now, OM has been singled out for the weakness of its training center. The Marseille club has not managed to bring out that many cracks. There were still some, notably with Samir Nasri. At the time, OM relied heavily on its attacking midfielder, even to the point of announcing him as the new Zinedine Zidane.
A real Marseille kid, Samir Nasri is a pure product of the OM training center. A phenomenon that the Marseille club did not hesitate to launch into the deep end very early on. It was in 2004 that Nasri plays his first match in Ligue 1 withABOUTbeing then only 17 years old. It must be said about Canebière, we were banking heavily on him…
“We’re going to put you in the room with the new Zidane”
Today sports advisor of theABOUT, Mehdi Benatia had rubbed shoulders Samir Nasri within the training center of the Marseille club. At the time of signing, we had clearly warned the Moroccan. Indeed, for 1899 The Weekly, Benatia tell : ” Anigo? He gave me a one-week trial, including a friendly match at Consolat. I played with Flamini in the middle. After three days, he told me to tell my family and tell them I was taken. Initially, we had a good relationship. At the Bastide, he said in front of my mother: “We’re going to put you in the room with the new Zidane (Nasri)” ».
“The flow immediately passed”
At the training center of theABOUT, Mehdi Benatia was therefore in the same room as Samir Nasri. The Moroccan remembers: “ In the center, we put our mattresses on the floor with Samir and played Football Manager until 5am. Sometimes we pretended to be sick to avoid checks. At this time, we also discovered the first night outings. He had already started playing with the pros, we were 17 years old. He told me to wait for him and I went out through the windows of the Bastide to join him. It was a new world for us, the Millennium, all that… ».
Samir Nasri also returned to his moments with Mehdi Benatia. The former crack of theABOUT confides: “ He did a test in Marseille, I wasn't there. He signed and joined the training center. I was asked to take him to a room with me at the Bastide. They told him he was going to be with someone they had high hopes for him to learn from. He was leaving Guingamp at the time. The first time I saw it was on the training ground where there was the mural. The flow immediately passed. We had friends in common ».
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