By Aline Chatel
Published on
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This is the feeling of the training center of the Malherbe Caen Stadium. Close to quitting football a year and a half ago after having faced many obstacles, Norman Bassette has just signed a first professional contract. The 17-year-old is in full light after an extraordinary weekend during which he scored the winning goal for the reserve team (his third goal of the season in National 2) then scored twice the following day with the U18s in round of 16 of the Gambardella Cup. The ex-weeder Clévid Dikamonahis sports adviser, had a hollow nose when he discovered this player on video in June 2020. He recounts the extraordinary rise of this Belgian teenager obsessed with the goal.
“His uncle asked for our help”
“I met Norman in June 2020, in the middle of Covid. With a colleague, we had launched a kind of detection in the Paris region to give young people a chance to come to England. We had made a little teaser, unfortunately everything had been canceled because of the Covid. Our publication was still online. One day, we receive a video from Norman’s uncle. He explains to us that his nephew doesn’t have a club and that he wants to quit football, but that he has too much talent to give up. He asks for our help.
The video may be of poor quality, we feel that there is something. He has a string of goals in all positions, he goes fast, he is good with his head, he has a left foot… We can see all his qualities. In the accompanying CV, it is stated that Norman has scored 43 goals in two seasons. We recontact the uncle and we do a video with the dad. It’s going very well. He then tells us the story of Norman (victim of harassment a few years earlier, editor’s note) and it clicks in my head. I tell myself that this kid can only succeed with this story. It’s a fairy tale.
“Mathieu Ballon says to me: Bring him over”
I try to make my network work, but with the Covid, nobody agrees to see Norman. I show the video to Mathieu Ballon (trainer of the Stade Malherbe U17s, editor’s note), who is a friend. I tell him, “Trust me. If I have to pay for the plane and the hotel for him to come, I will do it”. Looking at the video, I think Mathieu sees the same thing as me. He answers me: “There is no problem, make him come. We would like to take it to the test”. His parents and his family come during the holidays, just before the resumption, to visit the training center and the city.
Two or three weeks later, Norman comes to the test in Caen. He plays friendly matches and he has a string of goals. In training, he shows that he is hungry. Mathieu is thrilled, everyone is thrilled, Malherbe signs him off. Only here we encounter a first problem. Norman is only 15, but international transfers are allowed from the age of 16. The club asked Norman to return to Belgium and made him an oral promise that in January, after his 16th birthday, he would return. For four months, from September 2020 to January 2021, Norman did not go to school and he did not train. He just had a physical and school program to follow.
“Who is the young blond in front? »
He returned to Caen in January where he signed a training agreement… which was refused by the League. Second hurdle. The LFP believes that a foreign player must be under contract, but this requires paying training compensation. During the administrative procedures, Norman always plays, since these are friendly matches. He scored a hat-trick against Lens, scored in Rennes, in Nantes… He then played against Le Havre, still with the U17s. That day, President Pickeu is present. Norman plays a crazy match, but paradoxically he doesn’t score. President Pickeu asks who is the young blond in front. We explain to him. The president then says: “Do what is necessary, but he must be at the club”. In March 2021, three months after his convention, Norman signs an intern contract which will take effect on July 1, 2021. The story begins.
“With each selection, my phone rang”
Everything went at an enormous speed. During the first day of the championship, he replaced Lens. He comes in, he scores, they win 1-0. Afterwards, everything is linked and he finds himself in Nîmes in the group with the pros (the cascade of injuries had prompted Stéphane Moulin to summon him, editor’s note). Then, he returns to Ligue 2! He was then called up for selection and played in a big tournament in Spain. He scores all of his team’s goals. We are starting to talk about him a bit in the media, clubs are calling us and Malherbe is approaching us to start discussing his contractual future. He has always been successful in selection. This is what accelerated things for him. Every time he came back from selection, my phone rang. We didn’t leave the door ajar.
It’s a lot to manage for him, with a new school system in parallel, new demands… He’s a bit less well in November, December. We make him understand that he is not ready yet. We had a big discussion with him, his parents and the club. “If you want to become a pro, you have to work harder than the others. He got it. The contract comes fast because Norman is fast in his development, in his performance and because that is the reality of football today. If Norman doesn’t sign pro at Caen, he signs pro at Juve, Torino, Atlético… I always told him that the priority should be Caen. This was also his point of view.
“On a field, he gives everything”
He is a boy who has everything going for him. He is able to run for 90 minutes. He presses the defender until he pushes him to the fault. On a field, he gives everything. This generosity, for a kid of his age, is enormous. Beyond that, he has a sense of purpose. He is always well placed. I have the impression that he likes balloons. He has his left foot speaking for him. He is complete, apart from the right foot that he has to work on. He is strong in the head, he is fast. He needs to thicken up a bit more to be ready for Ligue 2, or even higher after that, but he’s young. His qualities as a footballer are there, when you add the mental strength he had to recover from his past ordeals, it makes a kid who will be difficult to stop. »
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