“I always wanted to inspire fear in my opponents, to feel that in their eyes! Before the games, I wanted the guys to say to themselves: we will play against Omeyer, it will be a real pain! No one else better than the general of the goals could relate this. Depict the pleasure of feeling impassable, of gaining the upper hand over the opponent and of imposing fear on the other. Telling also the obsession to do better, to improve, always, and to push again and again the limits of the requirement. And give the key to understanding, a little better, how Thierry Omeyer forged one of the most beautiful achievements in French sport.
This is what the double Olympic champion evokes in “Every goal is a defeat” (Editions Marabout. 19.90 euros), the book that he came to present to us in the premises of the Parisian – Today in France this Wednesday after -midday. No need to see him fall off the mask to verify the obvious. A year and a half after putting an end to his rich and long career, the guy, now sports coordinator at PSG hand, has not aged a bit, not an gram. Despite his forty-three years, he still gives the impression of having played his last match the day before, could still make believe that he will play the next one tomorrow.
However, the best goalkeeper of all time admits: he “is not the same today. “” I have freed myself in certain areas, “smiles the man with 59 trophies, known for his heightened professionalism. “During my career, for example, I never went to a restaurant the day before a match. For me, a good preparation was eating at home and going to bed early. Now he likes to say that he has no more scruples when he allows himself a glass of wine.
“Each goal conceded was a pain for me”
But nothing at all, he regrets nothing. Quite the contrary. He knows that his career would not have been this one without this singular character. “Have I been a psycho, a performance psychopath? Maybe that’s the right description, ”he laughs with a self-mockery he hasn’t always flaunted. In reality, his passion for his sport, for his position was also born from something else: “I quickly understood that a goalkeeper could have an influence, just as positive as negative, on the result of a match, explains he. This is surely what made me evolve to a level that I never imagined reaching. “
Did you have to be crazy, as it is so often said, to join the Brotherhood of Guardians? “In everyday life, I am neither daredevil nor crazy, laughs the Alsatian. But on a field, it is something else. When I am in my zone, I transform, I don’t have the apprehension that we have as a spectator when the balloons arrive quickly and strongly. “
On the contrary, the one who says “to have always lived the defeat badly, and even more (s) are poor performances” has always made sure “not to bear the weight of the responsibility for a defeat. “Hence this title,” each goal is a defeat “, revealing its” state of mind and its mode of operation “. “Each goal conceded was a pain for me,” he reveals. It was not a physical pain, but a kind of annoyance. It was thanks to that, to this permanent dissatisfaction that I lasted. “And marked the history of French sport.
