the essential
Born from the merger of AS L’Union Football and Saint-Jean FC in 2018, the USJFC has structured itself to become one of the best clubs in the region, in the wake of two presidents with very different personalities. but complementary.
In a corner of the entrance to the Union’s Georges-Beyney stadium, Daniel Nadalin and Jérôme Sudriez watch the line of spectators waiting before being searched. Before passing into the hands of the particularly meticulous security agent, no one fails to come and shake hands or give a kiss to the two presidents of Union Saint-Jean FC, a few minutes before a match like no other .
This match, USJFC won. It was on November 30 against Versailles, in the 8th round of the Coupe de France, an achievement, and two weeks later here the Haut-Garonnais club was at the foot of a summit as historic as it was dizzying against AS Monaco. That day, even before eliminating the Ile-de-France residents, Daniel Nadalin and Jérôme Sudriez already underlined it: “It is thanks to the merger that we are here.”
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In 2018, the two men decided that there would no longer be L’Union on one side and Saint-Jean on the other, but a single club for these two cities in the northeast of Toulouse, nearly 12,000 inhabitants each. “Sometimes, when you walk around, you no longer know if you are in Union or in Saint-Jean” underlines a resident, who wonders if town halls will not follow the same path as their football clubs in the coming years. years. Way to say that this merger was logical. “It was not done out of necessity but out of desire,” say Nadalin and Sudriez, under whose leadership the club achieved a historic rise to National 3 in 2022 and brought its five youth teams up to League level ( 4/5 in R1).
On paper, the duo between Nadalin, 74, and Sudriez, 52, might seem improbable, but it is working at full capacity. Former emblematic boss of the Point Viande butcher’s shop in Saint-Jean, in which he is still involved, Daniel Nadalin, president of Saint-Jean for 27 years, is the tireless extrovert, while Jérôme Sudriez, head of department at the Departmental Council, is more restrained, more strategic.
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“They complement each other very well, they understand each other, without needing to talk a lot to each other” explains Marc Benimeli, former player and volunteer with L’Union, now a member of the USJFC board. “It worked well because the two presidents have the ability to unite around them. The merger happened naturally, without animosity. At first contact, I was directly convinced” remembers Benimeli, one of the four people to have attended the first meeting in 2018. “We are united and complementary, we don’t step on each other’s toes” says Daniel Nadalin.
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“There’s no way the volunteers won’t see the match”
With the network in its local economic fabric, and the technical and sporting skills of Jérôme Sudriez, in six years, the Haut-Garonnais club has reached a milestone. Thanks to the sharing of infrastructures, a necessarily denser pool of players, a budget which has doubled, a second employee hired this year, the Union Saint-Jean has structured itself and obtained results, with a historic rise in National 3 in 2022, and the promotion of all youth teams to League level.
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But if the club has grown, to the point of appearing each year in the top 5 of the largest structures in Occitania (around 800 members this season), its leaders remain no less attentive to the human aspect of their adventure. Very attentive to pampering the club’s partners, Daniel Nadalin is also attentive to the volunteers: “They must not be there only to work, we must let them party. Once we understand that…”
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Accustomed to working alongside a more reserved, or cautious, Jérôme Sudriez, Marc Benimeli has noted in recent days, filled with preparation for the match against AS Monaco, that “it is in an event like this that we see the personality of people”: the president warned his troops, there is no question that on Sunday, a volunteer would be busy working rather than watching the match. Because better than anywhere else, we know that it is unity that creates strength.
