Gourcuff, the bad news

Yoann Gourcuff took part in the centenary of Parc Lescure on May 14 in Bordeaux, but the former French international number 10 is finished with the world of football, as one of his former teammates explains again.

“For me, honestly, he was the best player I’ve ever played with in my entire career.”. Yoann Gourcuff is undoubtedly “number 1” for Gregory Sertic, that Football.fr asked during the presentation of Playse, a training platform for children launched by Blaise Matuidi. Sertic remembers an exceptional Gourcuff during the year of the Girondins de Bordeaux championship title in 2009. The playmaker was crowned best player in Ligue 1 (with 12 goals and 10 assists) and even finished 20th in the Ballon d’Or ranking a few months later.

Unfortunately, Gourcuff’s career went completely downhill… Promoted to the new number 10 of the French team, he was unable to carry these pitiful Blues (because they were managed by Raymond Domenech) and did not shine at OL, who had made him their most expensive recruit in history in the summer of 2010 (22 million euros before bonuses). “He’s a very simple person, like his upbringing with Christian and his mother, so I think he didn’t want to arrive like Zidane. In his first match with the Blues, he scored twice (Gourcuff scored an exceptional goal during his 4th selection, in October 2008 against Romania, editor’s note), we said to ourselves ‘This is the new Zidane’and in Bordeaux, what he did was exceptional. At one point, all this media coverage was a bit too much for him, while he wanted to be the excellent player that he was but, but he wanted to be very discreet, except that, today, it doesn’t match today, especially with the social networks that have arrived”Gregory Sertic explains for us.

Gourcuff loves his life

Sertic thus remained in contact with Gourcuff and gave news of the father of the family settled in Morbihan: “We have remained very close. Even today, we keep in touch with each other quite a bit. He has his family life, his tennis, I think it’s the first time since he stopped that he put his shoes back on for the 100th anniversary of Parc Lescure, it really shows that today, he has put football aside, he is with his wife Karine, his children and he loves his life.” We will not see the talented playmaker trained at Stade Rennais and who played for AC Milan again in future gala matches…

Yoann Gourcuff therefore made an exception by participating in the 100th anniversary match at Parc Lescure (now Stade Chaban-Delmas) on May 14. It was on this pitch that the attacking midfielder scored his magic goal against PSG in January 2009… He thus met up with many former teammates, such as Fernando Cavenaghi, Marouane Chamakh, Matthieu Chalmé, Benoît Trémoulinas, Marc Planus, Souleymane Diawara and Cédric Carrasso. The Bordeaux crowd gave him a standing ovation, even though the spectators also celebrated legends Bixente Lizarazu, Zinédine Zidane, Christophe Dugarry and Alain Giresse.