Matteo Kenette-Messéan, 19 springs and scout in the United Kingdom

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Matteo Kenette-Messéan: After the baccalaureate ? It’s very complicated. I did these studies, but I don’t really have a goal in mind, and I don’t necessarily want to get into higher education because I am not in school at all. Maybe I imagined myself in sports events or in football communication, in fact it always revolves around football, because it’s my passion and my dream to work in this environment. I find out a little, but the grandes écoles are very expensive and financially it was complicated for me. I finally made the choice, in consultation with my mother, to go to England for a year. I leave for the first time a month, between July and August, to familiarize myself with the city, and I work as a waiter in a restaurant called The Alma, in Crystal Palace. At that time, I stay in a room which is above the bar.

FM: on the plane, what are you thinking about?

MKM: when I wake up in the morning, just before going to take the plane, I ask myself: “What am I doing?” “ It was the first thought I had, I had a lump in my stomach, it was a total blur. Even after I arrived, when my parents left, it was the most complete unknown. I repeated to myself: ” what am I doing here ? “ But in the end, when I came back in September it was like going home.

FM: a few weeks later, you’ll intercept an offer that will change all your plans: ex-pro Yannick Kamanan is looking for coaches for his academy in London. How did you find this offer?

MKM: The offer I triggered. My father-in-law’s cousin lives in London, and one of her neighbors took tenants, it’s a kind of guest room where we share common living spaces. When I arrived the second time in London, that is where I lived, before finding work and accommodation. The day after my arrival, I had to go look for work to pay for the room and in London, there is a page with all the French – as in many cities in Europe – it’s called “Le Cercle Des French ”. I posted an ad saying that I was looking for work, if possible in football. It follows that Yannick’s niece contacts me to tell me that his uncle has a football club, and that he could potentially look for coaches. Me, neither one nor two, I contact Yannick!

FM: can you give me an outline of your discussion with him?

MKM: We made a phone appointment, we talk about a bit of everything, he talks to me about him, things are going very well. I even remember, for the anecdote, that during that first call he did not tell me that he was a former professional player. I found it fun after the fact. I think we had a professional crush, but also humanely. Moreover, today he sees me limit as one of his sons. He has enormous confidence in me and I always try to give back to him. Over the course of the discussion, he ends up telling me: “I am looking for coaches and a scout for England.” I answer him that as far as being a coach is concerned, I am, but that for the role of scout I do not know. It’s not something that I have mastered or that I have already done, I am not trained for it. But in the future, why not? The priority at the time was to find a job and have an income.

FM: except that the question quickly returns to the table.

MKM: I meet Yannick in November and we get to know each other, we train, we necessarily talk about football, and after a month or two, he says to me: “I want you to be my scout”. I thought about it on my side, with my mom too, and she told me to go for it! This is a golden opportunity. I was 18 at the time, I just left a BAC pro Sales (without denigrating), “go for it”! Looking back, I tell myself that it would almost have been a lack of intelligence to refuse. Being a scout at 18 in England, with a former pro who trusts you like that, without training, there aren’t many who would have offered me this one!

FM: where does your passion for football come from?

MKM: I am a 2001 and it starts at the age of 6 with Olympique Lyonnais, with Karim Benzema, Juninho,… My first European match at the stadium is Lyon-Real Madrid in Gerland, it must have been in 2011. In At the same time, my father bought me a lot of DVDs from France 2006, France 98, Euro 2000, all the best goals in the world, all generations combined, and all of that created a fairly rich football culture for me. Before making it my job, it was already my life, whether on social networks or on YouTube, I am aware of everything that is happening. My mom always tells people I can tell you Lionel Messi’s shoe size! I have always watched Ligue 2 too, because I am from Niort and I support the Chamois. I have been going to the stadium since I was little. Younger with my father, more with my friends afterwards. I saw a lot of National matches, Ligue 2,… At the time when I played there it was CFA 2, I think. In first and last year, I even went there every Friday. It was our Friday night meeting: we went to the Chamois, then to the VIP lounge, etc.

FM: what are your scout missions?

MKM: I will receive a request from a club, which is looking for a goalscorer, for example, and I will try to find a player who is free or who wants to change club, which I will then propose to the requesting club. That’s more during the transfer window. So there is this first part, which concerns professional players, where we are there to make transfers. There is then a second part with young players, where we work on the long term. This is our priority. My main mission is to identify young players with potential, English or French, for the agency (Sportify, Editor’s note). I then have to contact them, observe them, talk to their families, and finally try to get them to join the agency. From the moment the player has signed, one becomes his official representative, it will therefore be necessary to manage if he is kept in his club, if he extends his contract, if he has to change club for x reasons, the tests elsewhere, etc. It sounds simple, but there are a lot of secondary tasks: discussing with the clubs, knowing what profiles they need from a particular generation, and doing this with all the clubs in England, Ligue 1, Ligue 2, .. It’s a very busy job, you have to be available 24 hours a day, and always on your phone.

FM: how do you anticipate potential?

MKM: In my opinion, football is 70% mental and 30% intrinsic qualities. What is complicated to detect is does a player have the desire and the mind to go to the very high level? Because there are good players everywhere, but a very good player is the one who will work more in training, who will always be rigorous, who will always have the same will in training and in matches. I really like arriving a little earlier, because you can see a player who warms up badly, and the warm-up I think is quite revealing of the player’s personality. Someone who will be last, who will drag their feet a little, or conversely who will be in front and lead the group, it’s very different! In the attitude, but also the motor skills of the body. How is he on his feet, is he slow or lazy? And in the field, it is felt very quickly too. In travel without a ball, in particular. Today the professional clubs don’t care if you are good, because in two days they will have another good player. It’s the mentality that will make the difference. With this in mind, watching a player without a ball is very interesting, because you see how he works, how he puts himself back, how he makes calls, if he makes calls all the time, if he comes to pick up in the feet, if he goes deep, if he is generous in his calls and in his defensive efforts, there is a lot to observe.

FM: quickly after your arrival in England, there is Brexit (February 1, 2020), then the Covid crisis. How have these two major events impacted your daily life?

MKM: concerning the health crisis, it is quite complicated because of the lack of visibility and the impossibility of projecting oneself. But it’s the same for everyone, and you have to adapt. So I recruited players on social networks, like many other recruiters or agents. With Brexit then, what impacts us a lot is that England is closing the door to foreigners and wants to bring up its young English people. In my opinion, they will also be the losers. When you see the matches of young English people and young French people, the difference in terms of tactics and game intelligence is quite obvious. It is even a world of variation. The midfielder in England hardly exists. These are the defenders who throw powerful and fast attackers into the deep. We took a snapshot of it talking about kick & rush, but this is the reality! There is no game plan. Whereas in France I take pleasure in seeing the teams which make a turn, which pass by the goalkeeper, which change ends, which come back, which in fact take their time! I think that the French training is really very good, but that our problem is more at the level of mentality. Today we may see each other too good too soon, especially on social networks.

FM: Does the fact that you are very young sometimes cause you problems in terms of credibility, with the recruitment units in particular?

MKM: It has never served me or it has not been told to me. But I don’t advertise my age anyway when I talk to pro clubs, because I don’t think I’m nineteen that I should. Then, with our players, I think I understand them differently, almost like a friend, while remaining professional. I bring something that they don’t necessarily have with their parents, relatives or agents. I am their age and I understand what they are doing. I’m going to understand such and such a story on Insta or such nervousness with the coach, that someone older will have a hard time understanding. It is a kind of proximity, an ease in communication. For our agency which works with young people, I see this as an asset.

FM: more down to earth, do you make a living from your job as a recruiter?

MKM: the job of recruiter, no. But next to me I have coaching and then we are a young agency, which really started to be set up in 2019, before I got there. Our goal is to grow together and when it pays off it will pay off. It’s a kiffe to live all this on a daily basis and for nothing in the world I would exchange this job for a sum of money.

FM: Do you sometimes take the time to realize everything that has happened in a year and a half, and that hundreds of 19-year-old football fans would dream of being in your shoes?

MKM: it’s more in certain situations where I’m going to say to myself: “It’s crazy what I’m going through!” “ It is exceptional in every sense of the word. Exceptional because it is very unusual, but also because without it, I would never have been able to go to Dubai (there was for training, editor’s note), I would never have been able to meet people like Habib there. (Beye, Editor’s note), … I know that I am privileged. I realize what I am going through and I am very happy about it, but this is only the beginning. This time ahead that I have compared to some who started at 30, it has to be beneficial for me because what I have done so far is a thousandth of what I want to do .

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