Football – Rodez: Ugo Bonnet, more than a start

His unique gait, à la robocop; her multi-coloured ponytail; his own phrasing. But also and above all its crazy explosiveness, its capital goals or its historical celebrations. All that is over. Ugo Bonnet and Rodez, it’s over. In the anonymity of a cold but sunny Thursday, January 27, not far from the end of the winter transfer window. Like a bomb, dropped without warning or almost. Yes, Raf supporters can weigh down. They are orphans since yesterday of one of their heroes. From one of those who, through self-sacrifice, led the club to where it is today.

Professional football is like that. Rich, but cold. There will be no exit under the cheers for the kid from Montpellier, 28 years old today, who is going to join a big machine of French football, the VAFC. Although she is currently flu – 18th in L2 and stormed behind the scenes – her proposal, the outlines of which we do not know to date, should not be refused for the one who nevertheless had a contract which bound him to Raf until 2023. It must be said that the Northerners had already come this summer to try their luck with the striker who will have scored 40 goals in 197 matches in total in the blood and gold jersey since his arrival in post-training, in 2010. Of which more half since joining Ligue 2 in 2019, a division in which he will have played 84 out of 88 possible matches. Which also makes him the club’s top scorer under coach Peyrelade.

Four days to find a worthy replacement?

To part with it, moreover in this timing, President Pierre-Olivier Murat, as a good manager as he likes to call himself, had to receive a shiny check. What to be able to turn around by Monday evening and the closing of the transfer window? Probably, even if we suspect that in view of the usual (good) work of the doublet Murat-Gregory Ursule, the general manager, the thing had to be anticipated. Last night, when the club’s press release had just dropped and announced the news, the leaders’ phones remained off in any case.

Like that of the former “super-sub” who rose through the ranks one by one to go from Promotion Ligue matches with the III team to those that led him to remain forever the first scorer in the history of the club in Ligue 2, a certain July 26, 2019 on the banks of the Garonne, against AJA. It must be said that if Valenciennes and its media president Eddy Zdziech confirmed their interest yesterday, they conditioned his signature on the traditional passage of the medical visit. The case to be tied up during the weekend in an official way, with, one imagines, a possible clause preventing it from making a resounding return in a big week during the 23rd day of the championship which sends the VAFC to Paul -Lignon on February 5.

It’s a funny adventure in which the man with the double rise CFA – National and National – Ligue 2 embarks. Because if this season, with Rodez, his stats were lower (two goals scored), than its significance in the performance of the team was also less felt, life at the Raf seemed much more serene than at the Hainaut stadium. Internal crisis, results at half mast, supporters in the middle of a divorce… Bonnet lands on embers and in the hands of a coach who tumbled out last November, Christophe Delmotte in this case, who is waiting for a serious boost in the offensive sector.

That’s good, the boost is his specialty at Bonnet. Finally, he started from the piton, as he was on the ground of Paul-Lignon. In a flash.

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