The last day of Ligue 1 on Saturday (9 p.m.) promises to be “crazy” with a number of teams who have “nothing left to lose”, warned former Ballon d’Or Jean-Pierre Papin in an interview with AFP Thursday in Tourcoing (North), on the sidelines of the presentation of the new championship ball.
Q: How do you judge the new Ligue 1 ball, unveiled on Thursday and produced by the French brand Decathlon?
A: “I think it’s a ball that should be more efficient because it’s a little harder, a little drier, with things to adjust the trajectories that are brand new. Afterwards, we adapt to everything and to a moment, even if the ball is important, it’s the foot that makes the difference!”
Q: How do you judge the technical evolution of these balls for more than 20 years? Are the trajectories less legible?
A: “It has nothing to do with what was done when I was playing. We still had sewn balls, today they are heat-sealed, a little more spherical, the texture is no longer the same. It’s different. With my players (he trains Chartres in N2, editor’s note), I train regularly with this kind of ball and it’s a real pleasure. Today the trajectories are good. At one point the trajectories were a bit unreadable because there were a lot of different balls.”
Q: What do you expect for the last day of L1 on Saturday evening? Are you afraid of seeing OM lose everything, who do you see finishing on the podium?
A: “I expect her to be crazy because one last day, you have nothing to lose. Whether it’s up or down, you’re bound to let the horses go. With direct confrontations at the top table (OM-Strasbourg, Lens-Monaco, editor’s note), I think it will be a crazy day. But I don’t think OM will lose everything. I think OM will win (and secure their place on the podium, editor’s note). It will be a complicated match but they will play in front of more than 65,000 people who are on their side, so logically I think that OM will win. Afterwards, the problem is that football is not doesn’t make sense!”
Q: Seeing Bordeaux go down is heartbreaking for you, former Girondins (1996-1998)?
A: “For Bordeaux, I’m very sad. It’s such a beautiful club that to see it fall like that, it hurts. If you’re in the last places for one or two years in a row, if you don’t come back right away following a slightly more normal ranking, you dive in. On this last day two historic clubs will go down with Bordeaux, Saint-Etienne or even Metz and it’s sad…”
Q: Paris SG is already a champion… But its European objective still eludes it. What must the club change to hope to finally win the Champions League?
A: “If I knew it, I would tell you! I don’t have the impression, when I see them playing, that they are united. I have the impression that everyone plays as they want, that They’re not all buddies. On paper, it’s a very, very good team with a lot of big individuals, but when they don’t recite their football, when they’re in trouble, that’s where we should see a team and there you never see her.”
Q: In your opinion, should Kylian Mbappé leave PSG to be able to claim the Ballon d’Or one day? As he is at the end of his contract in June, would he have a better chance of winning this trophy at Real Madrid?
A: “Only Kylian has the answer. I think a player, if he has dreams, he must achieve them. If his dream is to play for Real Madrid, he must he goes there otherwise he will regret it all his life.”
Interview by Nicolas BLASQUEZ
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