Der Zakarian, Brest in peace / Portrait of Friday / Brest / SOFOOT.com – SO FOOT

They hoped for it, waited for it, and ultimately won’t see it. At the Francis-Le Blé stadium this Friday evening at 8:45 p.m., Lionel Messi will neither hello nor martyr Stade Brest in his lair. Neither did Neymar, by the way. A blow for these fans who spent several hundred euros – sometimes even 400 (!) – all that to say: ” I was there ” . All this to taunt the whole of France or quite simply to satisfy their impulse, their desire, to see the six-fold Golden Ball wear a jersey with the patch of Ligue 1 Uber Eats for an evening.

“We say that we have a shitty championship, that we have a lot of things that are not good … But if we manage to bring a player like that, it would be extraordinary. We will feast ” Michel Der Zakarian, on Messi

Michel Der Zakarian, too, will be a little disappointed. The new Brest coach did not immediately hide from anyone that the arrival of La Pulga had a “boost” effect on his sexuality: “I’m not going to be polite, but he makes me hard, dude.” We say that we have a shitty championship, that we have a lot of things that are not good … But if we manage to bring a player like that, it would be extraordinary. We will feast ” . Too bad, we will have to wait a little longer for the meeting to take place between the Breton technician and the Argentine star. Evil for good: during the first two days, the men of Der Zak ‘proved that they had the weapons to look the Europeans in the French championship in the eyes. After hanging Lyon (1-1), qualified in the Europa League, and Rennes – which leads its boat in C4 – on the same score, the time has come to tackle a first-rate ship. Zef the Pirate will not oppose it, neither Michel Der Zakarian.

Europe and Finistère stronghold

Just as seeing Messi cross the Pyrenees was unthinkable just a few months ago, Michel Der Zakarian did not necessarily imagine himself, at the end of May, landing in the city of Ponant. He had just ended a great adventure in Hérault, a new one, after having played there and then grown up as a coach for nearly 20 years between 1988 and 2006 and then from 2017 to last May. “It stopped, it had been four years, replay the interested party. I didn’t feel the management wanted to continue, and I also wanted to see something else. It was done like that. ” For Daniel Congré, one of his relays in the Montpellier locker room, the group could have yet re-established for a fifth season: “I didn’t necessarily feel the end of the cycle, poses the new defender of Dijon. We have had four great seasons with him and I think it was felt more vis-à-vis the club than vis-à-vis the players. The coach did not let anything show, he was involved until the last match and was serious and pro until the end. ”

When Laurent Nicollin made the decision not to extend it to La Paillade, the Franco-Armenian never thought it was time to take a break. He immediately rushed into a new tunnel, surely guided by a desire not to relive these “Nine months of unemployment between [son] dismissal from Nantes and [son] return to Ligue 2 in Clermont » known at the start of his coaching career, between 2008 and 2009. Michel also dreamed of Europe, for the first time in his life as a coach after having experienced a few epics with crampons on his feet, but the opportunity never presented itself . “I had Brest, that’s all. I’m not going to tell stories, he admits. I didn’t want to stop for one or two years, the opportunity was Brest, which is in Ligue 1 and has ambitions. I didn’t want to take a break, I wanted to continue coaching. It’s my passion, I don’t want to take a break while waiting for an opportunity or for a coach to take his place. ”

“It was explained to him that we were a family club in which I involved the coach in the decision-making regarding the recruitment. A little character, rigor, we perhaps had needs at that level. What could have pleased him is also the fact that we are a club with a very simple operation, the decision-making is done between the management and my coach. ” Gregory Lorenzi

“He said he wanted to play the European Cup, we didn’t necessarily take it badly, explains for his part the Brest sports director Grégory Lorenzi. It is not because someone has a wish that being in Brest is therefore a choice by default. Opportunities may not arise, but that is also why he has always been clear on this: the Brest project interested him, otherwise there would never have been the first contact. ” The SB29 also had its location for him, the in-laws of the former defender having Penmarc’h (southern Finistère) as stronghold, a hundred kilometers below Brest. As for the rest, there was Lorenzi’s speech, this “Feeling” positive and the assurance of finding in the 29 a little of what he had known in the Hérault. “It was explained to him that we were a family club in which I involved the coach in the decision-making regarding the recruitment. A little character, rigor, we perhaps had needs at that level. What could have pleased him is also the fact that we are a club with a very simple operation, the decision-making is done between the management and my coach. ” An important parameter for the former Nantes resident, who had for example known the totalitarianism of Waldemar Kita in Nantes: his friction with the president of the Canaries, at the final whistle of the 38^e day at La Beaujoire last year, has also summoned old ghosts: “I’m happy for you, but not for FC Nantes! ” , had he let go to his former boss in the passageways of Louis-Fonteneau, after having sent the Yellow to the Ligue 1 / Ligue 2 dam. That evening, by beating the locals (1-2), Michel and his MHSC had also validated the maintenance of … Brest, seventeenth at a point of the trap. A few weeks later, he and Olivier Dall’Oglio exchanged places a few days apart. “If I had been told all that, I wouldn’t have believed it, laughs Lorenzi. History has done it right. It is purely chance. ”

Bitter, Michel?

Franck Rizzetto knows Michel Der Zakarian like little in the world of football. Despite the “Eight-nine” different from his elder brother, he played with Der Zak ‘and then followed him to Reims, Montpellier and today in Brest in his second life as a coach. The two have one word to describe their relationship: they are complementary. “It’s in relation to our personalities, details Rizzetto. I am more “laid back” than him. To say things to the players, I say it my way, say it to him his way. Michel is not going four ways, put it frankly, gives a lot of goals to the players. ” Like Michel, Franck loves golf. Even if at the moment, they are going less. “In Montpellier, we had a bunch of friends with whom we did it regularly. Since we arrived in Brest, we’ve only been there twice. The weather allows it less ” , he laughs.

“In terms of the media, he has always protected himself. Because otherwise, he is a passionate person. Sometimes even too expressive ” Daniel Congré

Number 1 confirms: “We don’t just play golf, we work first (Laughs). We try once a week to get away from it all. We like the little ball. It allows us to clear our heads. ” From the greens to the Ligue 1 stadiums, wherever he has accompanied the Brest thinker, Rizzetto has seen the same scenario repeat itself: Der Zak ‘did the job and then left. Often with the feeling of a job well done, rarely with the spotlight shining on him. He brought Nantes back to Ligue 1 to finally freelance in Champagne in the elite’s antechamber the following year. He installed Montpellier in the top 10 of French football on his arrival in 2017 while the Hérault club was coming out of a nightmare season where he had come close to relegation. Without interest the stables which were above him or which, like him, dream of evenings on the Old Continent. In recent months, Lille have taken Jocelyn Gourvennec, Rennes have chosen Bruno Genesio, Lyon and Marseille have turned abroad when Nice has even paid to attract Christophe Galtier in their nets.

Espresso and Rizzetto

A question then arises: does not Michel Der Zakarian suffer slightly from an image deficit? Of this “shell” that he wears in front of the media and at a press conference where others, whose sporting results are not more convincing, excellent? Maybe a little bit. “In terms of the media, he has always protected himself, explains Daniel Congré. Because otherwise, he is a passionate person. Sometimes even too expressive. In training or in a match, we can’t say that he didn’t show anything. ” His new N + 1, Grégory Lorenzi, abounds: “I think above all that he is a shy person who, in the past, had a bad experience with the press. He is not someone who likes to pour out into it. He prefers to have fairly short, fairly straightforward answers, which can sometimes seem rather cold. But when you are with him and you discuss, nothing prevents being able to laugh, to discuss a lot of things other than football and we realize that he is also and above all a pleasant person. There is football, but there is also the man. ” The man, precisely, still has a few years to spend on a bench in Ligue 1. Rallier Brest was no longer surprising in this sense. Because beyond the athlete, getting closer and even coming back to Brittany emanated from a common desire between his wife Véronique and him. “I know Brittany, I lived for a number of years in Nantes, concludes Michel Der Zakarian. Brest is further west, but it’s a beautiful region, there are beautiful corners, it’s very wild, and there are small beaches even if the water is very cold. It’s the job that wants that: whether you are a player or a coach, you are nomads, you have to move. ” By Andrea Chazy and Jérémie Baron
Words by Michel Der Zakarian, Grégory Lorenzi, Daniel Congré and Franck Rizzetto collected by AC and JB, except where mentioned.