AS Nancy Lorraine has just formalized the arrival on his bench of Daniel Stendel for two seasons. The German technician wants to make counter-pressing the playing philosophy of his future team. Nancy leaders rely on data to recruit suitable players.
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Unsurprisingly, the German Daniel Stendel has signed up for the next two seasons with AS Nancy Lorraine this Thursday, May 20, 2021. After having officiated in Germany (Hanover), England (Barnsley) and Scotland (Edinburgh), the 47-year-old coach will therefore discover the French championship.
Without a club since June 2020, the former Hanover striker is an apostle of “Gegenpressing”, in other words of counter pressing. This principle of play consists of pressing the opponent very aggressively as soon as the ball is lost. The idea is to regain possession of the ball immediately after losing it.
Refuse to back down
This game strategy began to emerge in Germany (hence its name), with Borussia Dortmund coached by Jürgen Klopp (2008-2015). Since then, she has been adopted by many coaches in different countries, including Pep Guardiola who coaches Manchester City.
The followers of gegenpressing refuse to back down. They believe that it is better to perform an intense effort for five to seven seconds than to chase the ball for longer and have to start from lower again to recover. If the gegenpressing works, the way to reach the goal is very short: the counterattack will become lively and intense.
Gauthier Ganaye, the new deputy president of AS Nancy Lorraine is a fan of counter pressing. A principle of play that he decided to set up in the English club of Barnsley between 2017 to 2019, with precisely Daniel Stendel on the bench. After importing him into the Ostend club (Belgium) which he also manages, the 30-something now wants ASNL to adopt this philosophy.
Data at the service of recruitment
But gegenpressing requires a lot of generosity, endurance and concentration. For this system to work, you need footballers with very specific profiles. This is precisely what Gauthier Ganaye is looking for for Nancy, whose workforce will be considerably overhauled this summer (fifteen players are at the end of their contract).
To find the right recruits, the president of the ASNL relies on data, advanced statistics on the physical and technical performances of the players (speed, number of high intensity races in a match, movement without the ball, etc.).
On March 29, he told the daily L’Equipe : “There is a significant margin of error when making decisions in the field of recruiting, because it also concerns people. I’m not a data extremist who thinks that the best recruiter and the best coach in the world are computers. On the other hand, I assume that the more information we collect on the sidelines of a decision, the more we will reduce the margin of error “.
Young and cheap players
Gauthier Ganaye confides that he already has many reinforcement tracks (especially abroad) to play the rise in Ligue 1 next season with Nancy. Fairly young players, under 26, at affordable prices on which the club can potentially make a capital gain on resale. “Gegenpressing is not the style of play that requires the most talent. However, it is the talent that is usually expensive!” he explained to the newspaper L’Equipe.
Since he took the head of the ASNL last January, Gauthier Ganaye has relied on the recruitment unit he set up in Ostend to search for “data-compatible” players with the future Nancy game project. We are now awaiting the announcement of the first names that will make up Daniel Stendel’s team, when training resumes on June 15.
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