Touch after touch, women’s football wins the hearts of supporters and the public. The 11.8 million viewers for the France-USA match during the World Cup prove it.
At the top of this sport, there is the Olympique Lyonnais (OL) team, for the seventh time on the roof of Europe since August 30 when they won the final of the Champions League.
From Wednesday September 9, with the documentary The players # paslàpourdance, we can discover a little of the intimacy of this team at the cinema.
Respect as a common thread
A film by Stéphanie Gillard which radiates the notion of transmission within the group. What the youngest, Selma Becha, 19, confirms: ? “When I arrived at OL at 16, it was immediately comfortable. I did not know the galleys like Wendie (Renard)?, Sarah (Bouhaddi) ?And the others. They are my big sisters even if sometimes they yell at me on the pitch. Without them, I would not be as mature today on and off the pitch. “
The other common thread of the documentary is respect. A must for Wendie Renard, great defender of OL: ? “With the staff, we are thirty-five, so respect must be declined on a daily basis even if we all have different characters. And respect is also, of course, that towards the adversaries. “
Next to the sportswomen and the staff, another character haunts the whole film, appearing very little, the president of the club, Jean-Michel Aulas. He doesn’t take offense at all. ? “It’s stronger that I don’t appear much. It is the actors in the field who count. My role is to act upstream to build. “
So, it is the players who talk about it, like Wendie Renard: ? “From the start, the president said, ‘I want to win the Champions League’. They were not empty words. Seven Champions Leagues and fourteen titles in all, it’s thanks to him and his team. “
? “I only had the opportunity to develop women’s football from 2004, remembers Jean-Michel Aulas. From there, I invested myself personally and economically fully so that it was not just declarations of intention but a system that we build and that self-develop. So that the players can really make it their profession. It is not about communication but about management and conviction. “
Three weeks without a camera
To capture this story and this daily life of OL des filles, director Stéphanie Gillard first had to be accepted. “I had three weeks without a camera to get to know each other. At the end of this time, I came with a camera, first alone, then with my team. I needed this time to understand how they work together. “
This is also why the players, like goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi, accepted it. “When journalists want to come into our privacy, we always say to each other, but why? But she was a filmmaker. This film is like our titles, it will stay. “
“And it allows to show the daily life of top athletes, continues forward Eugénie Le Sommer. We can see the work that it is raining, the training… We think that everything is acquired at OL. That we are put on the ground and that it is won. Well no, there is a lot of work. “
But in fact, why this addition to the title: # paslàpourdanser? It is the producer Julie Gayet who gives the keys. “When the first women’s golden ball was awarded in 2018, it was OL player Ada Hegerberg. And the first thing we asked her was if she could dance… ” Obviously, a question that we did not ask Lionel Messi!
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