A ball for two was enough for the happiness of the twins, Benjamin and Jérémie Sutter, when they went to see their father play on Sunday in Simandres. They were registered with the Feyzin club, and that’s where OL spotted them. “The club had just created a sports-study section on rue Vendôme, and it took both of us. We could sleep at home every night, that convinced our parents,” Jérémie explains today.
With his brother, Benjamin, Jérémie then discovered what was done best in the region, in terms of structures and training sessions. “We were told that we had qualities, talent, we perhaps relied a little too much on that” adds Jérémie, whose qualities as a center-forward were real.
Benjamin, a full back, still believes today that he did not have enough talent, but it was he who was most often called up in the French youth teams, between 15 and 17 years old. The two boys will even compete together for the U17 World Cup in Canada in the summer of 1987.
One came off the bench twice, not the other …
Gifted, but perhaps not hardworking enough. To explain their ceiling at OL at the end of their internship contract in June 1991, the two brothers see no other explanation. “We lacked a bit of everything, but we were not sufficiently guided in our course. We began to understand everything that could have failed us with Raymond Domenech, but it was already too late” explain- they.
During the 1989-90 season, the two brothers, however, closely touch the professional dream. In the second part of the season, Benjamin finds himself on the bench twice (there were only two substitutes at the time), but does not return to Monaco or Marseille. Jérémie is entitled to a 75-minute entry into the game against Montpellier at Gerland (3-1) in February, then another, shorter in the Coupe de France in Nîmes, but at the time, we did not sign pro as that. You have to play at least 15 first team matches. The story at OL will end there for both of them.
They find themselves teammates in Bourges and Bourg
The two brothers will never be very far from each other. Even if they will take different directions, they will play together again at Bourges then at Bourg-Péronnas, and finally at the end of their professional career, at Chazay d’Azergues and FC Lyon.
Today, Jérémie works for the consulting firm Score Agencies, headed by David Venditelli, in the football world, while Benjamin has converted to a real estate agent in the Lyon region. At 51, the twins still have an eye on OL news, and cultivate no regrets.
