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Nicolas Savinaud, Nantes Canaries to entrepreneur

History of FC Nantes, Nicolas Savinaud still lives in the region of his heart club but his life as a business manager also takes him to the Hautes-Pyrénées, where his company has just opened a leisure complex in Ibos.

All roads lead to Tarbes, and even for a soccer player on rugby ground. At 47, Nicolas Savinaud is one of the bosses of the brand new leisure complex which has just opened in the Ibos shopping center. The most assiduous followers of what was still called D1 will have recognized there a history of FC Nantes from the Reynald Denoueix era. “It’s the club of a lifetime, relay in the good midfield that he was, the now business manager. I arrived there at 15 and left at 32.”

Champion of France 2001

Passed by the young French teams, Nicolas Savinaud can boast of a fine career in the elite of French football (308 games) with two victories in the Coupe de France (1999 and 2000), and a title of champion of France ( 2001) landed with the band of Eric Carrière and Mickaël Landreau. There is therefore plenty to summon up many memories within the Nantes house. “Compared to the generation of 1995 (Karembeu, Makélélé, Peydros, Ouédec, Loko…), we were perhaps less talented individually, but collectively, we managed to create a real something.”

So much so that two decades later, we still talk about it. “There is always kindness on the part of people, I don’t especially want to fall into the cliché of ‘it was better before’ but it was a nice time, there is a nice nostalgia.”

His career in professional football has brought him a certain comfort, and above all the freedom to choose what to do once the crampons have been stored in the garage after stints at Guingamp, Vannes or even Carquefou. “The greatest luxury, it is there, he says. When I was playing, I didn’t really project myself on the future, I trained in different things but I knew that I didn’t want to stay idle or work alone in my area.” The collective or nothing, the trademark of the Canaries for this entrepreneur who has around fifty employees spread over two sites (Ibos and another, earlier, located in Sables-d’Olonne).

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