Helping your youngsters to grow in order to grow yourself a little more. The Gym's future is in its youth academy. Director of Football, Julien Fournier, has made it a priority.

Football isn't just the transfer window, money and agents. Every club in the world — or almost — dreams of being able to rely on their youth academy. It's not easy. The INEOS version of Le Gym wants to try and do that. It's been some time since great players game out of the OGC Nice youth academy. The board and the staff count on helping young talents blossom in the years to come. This season, Christophe Galtier can count on Evann Guessand, a striker who came through the Nice academy, and who is back from a loan spell at Lausanne. The route to professional football is long, perillous and testing. From Julien Fournier, the Director of Football, to Manu Pirès, the Academy Director, via Frédéric Gioria, Christophe Galtier's assistant coach, everyone is looking in the same direction. Because tomorrow starts today.

Julien Fournier is not lacking determination and enthusiasm to put youth development at the heart of the Nice project. The Director of Football wants to use the club's strengths to do that.

Have you identified the weaknesses that have prevented the club bringing through top-class youngsters in recent years?

There are multiple weaknesses. Some have been resolved. The first step was to recruit well. That means to not have the fourth or fifth-choice, but to manage to get the first-choice, the one that everyone is chasing. We're starting to turn that trend around. OGC Nice gives youngsters a chance. A lot of youngsters in France have seen that and have made the choice to join us. The second step is to have an effective staff around them to put them in the best conditions in which to progress. I think we have achieved that too. We have top-class infrastructure and staff. All the ingredients are there, the work is being done. I expect results in the mid-term from that.

Can your relationship with Lausanne be an essential tool in the long term?

We don't want to send struggling players there, but rather players who are going to be part of OGC Nice later. Those with the most potential go there. Evann Guessand is one of them, just like Lucas Da Cunha et Pedro Brazao. They had a range of successes, but Lausanne must be an integral part of the development of youngsters at the club, as long as they deserve it. This year, we didn't send anyone there, because we didn't think anyone really deserved it. It's a real reward to go there and play in the Swiss Super League where the standard is excellent.

Does the scouting network need to be developed more?

I think that now we are in a good place, even if we can always do better. We have sufficient personnel and structure. Now, we have to deliver results. The recruiters are essential. They're often coaches or former coaches of amateur teams. They're people who, in addition to knowing football well, are able to build a relationship of confidence with the families. I'll say it again: we're not here to buy young players of 10, 11 or 13 years old, but we want to convince them to come to our youth academy. You have to convince those around them. It's not the same work as recruiting a professional player. The scouts often work out of the spotlight, but they have an essential role in the club's development.

Is competition in the region a stumbling block?

They suffer from the competition we create for them too. It's clear that local recruitment is crucial, but it's not enough. You have to be strong across France. When you see that nearly 70 per cent of professionals in the country come from the Paris region, that's exceptional. We have three full-time recruiters there. We have to be present just as we are in Marseille or Nice. It's real, healthy competition, with a sporting project and not dictated by money. I think youngsters today see OGC Nice puts faith in them. When a player is good, we don't look at his age and we quickly give him a chance.

Academy Director, Manu Pirès, accompanies youngsters on their route to the professional world. It's often not a smooth ride.

"Now, we're at a stage in the project where we have to up the standard. Our level of demands have gone up several notches." Manu Pirès, the Nice Academy Director, has just one wish: supply the first-team squad with quality players.

"To do that, we have to recruit the best youngsters in France. For the moment, we don't have them, but we have some very good elements that we want to develop," he said. To further that goal, Le Gym wants to bring together as many talents as possible to have competition in each position, from the National 3 league team to the U10s.

'Start as soon as possible'

Starting their training from a young age, "that's fundamental," for Manu Pirès. "Today, we don't necessarily have in our region the biggest breeding ground for talent in French football. We have to instil the identity and philosophy of OGCN as soon as possible, with our principles." The structure must be, like the big clubs in the region, to have very good teams from the youngest categories up. But how to be attractive for teenagers? "Money has always been a motor for recruiting the best youngsters," he admitted. But that's not his method. He explains that Le Gym "isn't necessarily in that and doesn't want to get into a bidding war to have those players."

Mental development

 “You can develop technique, and you can learn tactics with different coaches, but the mental aspect is the most important one.” After more than 30 years in professional football, Manu Pirès has come to this conclusion. By using the club’s identity and taking advantage of the strong characters, "the bulk of the work consists of refining the player's intelligence, the way they solve problems quickly, and then their cognitive senses."

The Aiglons' coach gives a lot of importance to mental coaches. All of these members of staff must explore more than just football: "Parents also instil a mentality in their child. We must not devalue them or put them in an overly idealistic position, because the football world is cruel. We also try to understand today's society. We get the impression that our young players want to succeed without giving it their all. We spend a lot of time off the pitch. It's easy to coach players.”

The first steps

In order to perfect their development, the most promising players take part in training sessions with the first team, under the supervision of Frédéric Gioria, "Talent Manager" and assistant to Christophe Galtier. His task is to support the major prospects in the post-academy phase. At the club since 2012, he speaks of the importance for a youngster to move up to the senior team, even if it is only a first step. "It should never be the end goal. Quite the opposite, it must become an additional motivation to work even harder. Although high standards are at the heart of our development policy, the demands made of professional players are much higher. This inevitably speeds up their progress," he concludes. 

‘Their demands were not coherent’

Julien Fournier explained the failure of Salim Ben Seghir (18) - shown here - and Bilal Nadir (17) who left to sign their first professional contract with OM. "These are boys who were offered an Elite contract, just like Justin Smith and Tom Louchet. They felt that the development project in Marseille was more interesting than the one in Nice. They had status and financial demands that were not coherent for us. They made the choice to leave OGC Nice and we are disappointed, because we invested a lot into them. But that's the way football is, and we'll see if they were right to leave OGCN to join OM.”

11th

This summer, the FFF released its national ranking of training centres, as it does every year. OGC Nice remains in 11th place, with a total of 2.5 stars out of 5 (see ranking). The Côte d'Azur club received three stars for professional development, which corresponds to the number of young players who have signed for their training club, two stars for their playing time in the first team, 2.5 stars for their national selections in all categories, two stars for their academic results and two stars for their European representation. "It's not a ranking that you look at carefully because there are a lot of criteria that come into play. The only thing that interests me is our capacity to produce high level players capable of integrating the OGC Nice first team," says Julien Fournier. 

 

 

Frédéric Gioria: Christophe calls upon the young players"

The former player and now member of staff, Frederic Gioria was assistant manager for Claude Puel, Lucien Favre, Patrick Vieira, Adrian Ursea and Christophe Galtier. He sees the new coach's confidence in the youngsters from the academy. "We have seen that since the beginning of the summer preparation, Christophe has called upon many young players from the academy. This has sometimes been because we had to, because professionals were injured or had not yet arrived. But others will stay with us for a long time. The example of Evann Guessand is without doubt the most telling since today he has extended his contract with us. Nice and Christophe believe in him. Others, like Smith and Louchet, train with us every day and Smith was in the squad for the trip to Lille.”

The Evann Guessand model

Evannn Guessand, who started at the Gym, has just completed a full season with Lausanne, scoring seven goals and providing five assists. The 20-year-old striker has extended his contract until 2026 and is now part of the squad. Julien Fournier is full of praise for him: "He is on the right track. He will be an example once he has played several games with us as a starter. But it is true that until now, he has been a bit of a role model for us. He is a kid who was recruited in Marseille. He came through the ranks with us and was loaned to Lausanne instead of playing in our reserves. He scored goals, got assists and played consistently. He came back transformed. He fully deserves his place in our squad and now a new adventure begins for him." 

"Nice-Matin"

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