CHRONIC. The Canal+ man in the field has lost his usual freedom. This character, a bit clownish, is nevertheless essential to our Ligue 1.
Par Florent Barraco
© LAURENT SANSON / LS Medianord / DPPI via AFP
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IYou should have seen him at the edge of the lawn of the Parc des Princes sitting on a folding chair waiting to be given the floor. Forget the twirling “Paga” going back and forth on the field watching for the slightest sign of annoyance from a player or trying to have an assistant – or even a coach – in an interview during the meeting. Today, Laurent Paganelli is bored. U.S. too. Since the Covid, the Canal + consultant can no longer exercise his profession and offer subscribers an amused, but precious look at Ligue 1.
For twenty years, the ability of the former little prince of AS Saint-Étienne to walk from bench to bench, ask a few questions on the spot and laugh with the substitutes has been his trademark. This bonhomie and this nerve distinguished him from other men in the field, an often banal and useless role (“How is the lawn?” “Grasse!” “Thank you!”). He was also the darling of the players who saw him as a colleague. Able to ask questions to Balotelli in broken English or to Neymar in no known language (the famous “great jugador”), “Paga” is this fresh breath which has made it possible to pass the time during many Ligue 1 purges.
But now, after the infernal Stéphane Guy, our French championship loses a new figure. Of course, “the little Mozart” is still present and launches some projections, but they no longer have the flavors of yesteryear. Paganelli no longer moves, parked in a fixed area under the gaze of stadium agents. We talk about the Covid, security, tension… Bla-bla-bla. We would have loved to have a word from Thierry Oleksiak, Christophe Galthier’s assistant, after the complicated first sixty minutes of PSG against Nice, or a few sentences from Bruno Génésio, a regular at the microphone.
Franck Montagny, the Paga of F1
Ligue 1 does not shine with its “fan experience”: no microphone on the referees, no interview in the locker room, no backstage. The spectator is invited to watch the game, and that’s it. But a discipline develops and survives thanks to characters who bring it to life and who dare. How to explain the success of Formula 1 on Canal+? His duo of commentators, Julien Fébreau and Jacques Villeneuve, capable of making fun, criticizing or igniting during a Grand Prix; and his handyman, Franck Montagny who allows himself everything in the paddock, especially the forbidden things. In 2021, in Baku, to illustrate a series of tire explosions, the former Renault driver sneaks up and lifts a tarpaulin where the offending rubber is stored. It’s forbidden, but that’s what’s good. “Viewers like that we don’t stay in the meadows. F1 must be shaken up a bit,” Montagny told us last March. The sanitization of sports comments (let us also mention the departures of Thierry Adam or Patrick Montel) erases the disciplines from the radar of the general public.
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If the Professional Football League wants its championship to cover colors – media coverage being in freefall – it must find characters – big mouths or clowns – who promote football. Ligue 1 needs it. Obsessed with the fall 2023 call for tenders, will Vincent Labrune finally take into account these elements that escape the checkbook? “In any case, we wish you so”, Laurent Paganelli could say with a laugh.
