Hamed came straight up to me, striding like a frustrated young horse. It was almost the end of the summer vacation, and for a week now it had been raining cats and dogs. The kids were already finding it hard enough to concentrate. If on top of that they had to play in a quagmire, that would be the end of it.
“No way to get a foothold, sir. Any pass you try, you end up on your ass.”
The players always need to talk. About a scratch, about the kit, the conditions. Some days, they just want to go back to the locker room.
“Show me your cleats.”
He turned his back to me and lifted one leg, and I glanced at the sole of his boot.
“They look small to me.”
“They’re the ones I always have, sir.”
“And you haven’t noticed anything since Monday?”
“Well . . . it hasn’t stopped raining.”
“And what do you think you should have done?”
“Put on bigger ones.”
“So now go back and do your best to stay on your feet.”
His eyes went up in their sockets. Hamed has that stubborn streak that leads him to drive straight into the defense instead of lifting his head and looking for an unmarked teammate. I have twenty-three like him to deal with, and there are days when I wonder what I’m doing here, looking after a gang of brats who’ll never become real soccer players.
It’s my second experience as a coach since I obtained my federal diploma. The first time was in Limoges with the top-division amateur team. Postmen who worked all week and came for training in the evenings. But I got tired of that schedule. So when I came across an ad in France Football, “Sedan Club seeks qualified instructor to handle its youth team, aged from ten to fourteen.” I thought it might be right for me. Not that I’m especially fond of kids. I don’t have any myself, and can take or leave them, but the salary was decent, and the fact that a house was included in the conditions clinched the deal for me.
Obviously, Sedan has its limitations. The club is long past its glory days and they won’t be coming back anytime soon. The premier team is in the second division, close to the bottom of the table. They need to find a little nugget. A player who’d give the supporters something to hope for, and drag the other team members up to a higher level. That’s what happened in Nancy with Platini. But a Platini comes along once every fifty years, and he’s unlikely to show up in Sedan. What I’m dealing with is kids like Kevin Rouverand. He’s the striker of the group—on a good day, at least. Less than five feet tall, a very low center of gravity, a killer right foot. He could really amount to something, but, as far as motivation goes, forget it. He strolls onto the field with that small talent of his, as if he has all the time in the world. Like a lot of his friends, he’s waiting for an offer from an important club. He skims through auto magazines, taps away on his cell phone, sculpts his hair with gel. He thinks he’s already arrived, when he hasn’t even gotten on the train.
I thought the rain was finally going to stop, but in fact it got even heavier, so I blew the whistle and collected the bibs. I didn’t want them to catch cold. The group was already decimated enough.
“See you tomorrow,” Kevin cried.
“See you tomorrow, try not to be late.”
He was already engrossed in his text messages. At first, that kind of behavior drove me crazy, but now I’ve developed a bit of perspective. It’s a generational thing. There are no more sons of miners. That doesn’t mean that young guys today have no aims, they want to make money, soon they’ll want girls. But that’s just an incentive, and to have a career you need more than that.
My own career stopped dead one Sunday in April, nearly ten years ago, when I was playing for Limeil-Brévannes. I’d just turned twenty-nine and the management of Martigues had already made an offer for me. A whole season’s trial, with an option on the following season, and I was feeling fairly confident about the future, until the other team’s center back destroyed that promised transfer by pressing down with all his weight on my left knee.
The guy’s name was Didier M’bati. He was originally from Ghana and must have weighed at least two hundred pounds. As I lay writhing in pain, he kept repeating that he hadn’t done it deliberately, and it was true. I’d tried to wrong-foot him, but my leg was in an awkward position and he’d stepped on it, just because he’d built up speed and couldn’t stop. I was operated on in Dijon, where recovery times were known to be quicker, but in my case they soon realized it was going to take more than a week. The damage was too extensive and, after various tests, the doctors confirmed that I’d never play soccer again. I’d be able to walk well enough, but from now on running would be a risky venture.
That opened the door to depression. I went into a spiral where I’d sleep almost all day and come to life only at night. I took the phone off the hook. I stopped washing myself, ate out of cans. Gradually, I got out of my depth and ended up taking refuge in drink, even though I’d always hated being drunk before. I started hanging out in bars, until the day I got into a fight with a guy, without even knowing why. They had to hold me back, I didn’t even see how badly I’d messed him up. I ended up in the police station, in a holding cell. Things would have gotten worse if something hadn’t happened that night. Lying on that straw mattress that smelled of piss, I had a weird dream. I was alone in the middle of a silent stadium, tracing white lines with a machine that squeaked with each turn of the wheel. I was taking my time, applying myself. Then, when my work was over, I sat down in the middle of the field and stayed there, feeling a sense of peace I’d never known before. As if the white lines were ramparts that protected me from everything.
When I woke up, I remembered the dream. It was like a revelation. Being a player wasn’t the most important thing. What I missed wasn’t the game itself, it was no longer being in that space where I felt safe. I just had to get back on the field and everything would be okay. And at noon, when the cops released me, my one thought was to call the Federation and inquire how to go about obtaining a qualification as a coach.
“Is it okay if I lock up the locker room, Monsieur Barteau?”
It was the keeper of the stadium. He was just behind me, in the fading light.
“Go ahead, Émile.”
“Did you get your car back in the end?”
“No, but Meunier’s going to drive me home. Have a good evening.”
I stayed there for another little while until the lights went out. The rain was still falling steadily, and a pool was starting to form in the penalty area. Things weren’t looking good for tomorrow.