Summers start to follow each other for Anthony Racine (1.90 m, 27 years old). The French post 2 – which however comes out of its best individual exercise in career (10.3 points) – encounters difficulties in initialing a contract. Training partner of Le Mans in August 2019, then Boulazac in August 2020, before each time finding a club at the end of September (Nancy two years ago and Denain last year), the native of La Genevraye (Seine- et-Marne) is keeping in shape, this time around, with SLUC Nancy. If the career goals of the player remain ambitious, he has the will, initially, to be part of a project on the medium / long term. The former resident of the INSEP confides.
You are coming out of an interesting individual season where you brought your touch of madness out of the bench with 3 points (10.3 points at 35% at 3-points). First of all, why not have stayed in Denain? It was the leaders who told you or you preferred not to extend to aim for a training of a higher standing?
Anthony Racine : “I arrived in the North at the end of September 2020 where I had signed a 1 year contract in order to strengthen the team. Today, Denain still does not have an approved training center but which will be set up from next season. Suddenly, between the regulations of the four players under 23 plus a few players at my post (rear) who are under contract, it was complicated to stay. Everything happened naturally and cleanly. “
You had a season beyond the expectations of a good number of observers at the start of last year (5th in Pro B). What was the recipe for this beautiful 2020-21 cuvée?
“The recipe for this great exercise is that there was quite simply a good group and that we were very well supervised. The coaches (Rémy Valin, Maxence Boyer), the managers (Yohan Senez, Mehdi Chalah), the people who participate in the proper functioning of the club make you feel good at Denain. And that is great. We were the youngest team in the championship and everyone knew their role in the team well. “
At the end of a good season from all points of view in Denain, Anthony Racine hopes to relive such beautiful emotions with his future club (photo: Miko Missana)
And on an individual basis, it’s your best offensive season in your career. But for the time being, you can’t surf this last great exercise. How do you explain it?
“It will come, I keep my confidence. As I have always said I am someone who does not let go and who hangs on. It’s hard to explain my situation, the fact that I’m without a club today, because I’ve learned that you can’t control what you can’t see. My season has been good individually and especially collectively like the previous year in Nancy. I continue to progress, to work and to look forward while proving to myself and not to others that I am able to repeat the good seasons and to be able to look at myself in the mirror, telling myself that I have given everything . I sincerely hope to be able to settle in a medium-long term project very soon. “
“I surround myself and listen to the people who push me up and know my true worth”
As we speak, have teams contacted you? Which division (s)?
“There were two contacts but unfortunately it was not successful and at the moment it is rather calm. I always aim to go as high as possible, that is to say the first division and one day reach a European Cup. But for now, the objective is simple: to settle permanently in a project and find a little serenity. Summers like this are really not easy. “
Today you are in Nancy where the SLUC has opened the doors for you to continue to provide physical support. A club where you played before signing for Denain. Do you take part in group sessions?
“I like the Lorraine air very well. It’s very kind of them to let me participate in the group sessions. I stay active, I keep in shape. “
Finally, this is not the first time that you have found yourself waiting for a club. This remains a period that you live with a little anxiety – because the workforce is very well advanced at the moment – or are you learning to manage while keeping the hope of quickly getting a contract?
“There is always anxiety but with age and time I learn to manage it better. Indeed, this is not the first time that I find myself without a club when my clubs resume the path of training and it remains a mentally complicated situation all the same. I don’t isolate myself, I don’t remake the world, I avoid answering the “why” when I know very well that I would never have concrete answers. I surround myself and I listen to the people who push me upwards and above all who know my true worth as a man and a player. And of course I stay active. This is what I do to avoid overthinking and managing my anxiety as well as possible. “
