Some departures are promising to great deal, others are sampled in a dignified silence. That of Steve Mandanda is like a slow, modest reverence, like his career. At 40, “El Fenomeno”, a pretty wink of fate, played her last professional match on May 17, 2025, welcomed by the ovations of a standing velodrome, when Stade Rennais offered him a few minutes for a final appearance.
Marseille then praised her as he greet his own, with warmth and recognition. Mandanda sketched a smile, repeated that “it was not a jubilee”, but everyone knew: a chapter of two decades had just closed.
“I needed to take my time to accept it, already, because it’s not simple, but yes I stop,” he explains this Wednesday to the team. I had a great period of reflection because I had a lot of calls (Le Havre, Lorient, Guingamp, Brest, Montpellier) But I said no every time. »»
Mandanda is first of all the story of a porter who has become a monument. Twenty years at the high level, fourteen seasons in the jersey of Olympique de Marseille. Arrived in 2007 in the Marseille city almost on tiptoe, coming from Le Havre, the native of Kinshasa, eldest of a siblings of 4 guards (perfect, riffi and over), settled in the cages after the injury of Cédric Carrasso.
Forever linked to OM
Fate invites itself and will no longer leave it. With OM, he played 613 official games (with an unfinished interlude to Crystal Palace in 2016-2017), a figure that says everything: the loyalty of a player who knew sports storms and institutional tremors without ever failing.
2010 will remain its summit: champion of France with Didier Deschamps on the bench, he raised the trophy that Marseille had been waiting for for eighteen years. He adds three cups of the League and two trophies of the field, but above all a symbolic heritage: that of the constant captain, which embodies the spirit of the club much more than a prize list.
Well beyond the figures, he will have represented what no club can buy: loyalty and consistency. Within an institution agitated by recurring convulsions, he was the dike, the quiet rock. Captain with a rare voice but to natural authority, he held the locker room as his surface: without unnecessary brilliance, but with unalterable firmness.
In the French team, his destiny was paradoxical. Cantoned with the lining role of Hugo Lloris, he could have annoyed, get impatient, claim more. But Mandanda has always preferred to serve the national cause. His 35 selections do not say it enough: he was the protective shadow, the essential companion, the 2018 world champion whose presence appeared as much as she secured. Didier Deschamps and his staff knew it: Mandanda was not a simple number two, but the archetype of the model teammate, the one whose exemplary consolidates a group.
Soon consultant on TV?
When he left OM in 2022 to reach Rennes, much feared the halftone epilogue. It was quite the opposite: two beautiful full seasons, before a new hierarchy – carried by Brice Samba – pushed him back to the bench in the winter of 2025. Rather than hanging on, he chose the measure: accepting his role, preparing his release. He prioritized dignity rather than relentlessness, faithful to his nature. In football as in life, Mandanda has always favored the measure to excess.
Today, he remains installed in Rennes, where his son Sacha (16) is still dismissed. But already, other horizons open: the television sets, which request it, or perhaps a leading role, as its experience and its wisdom impose it.
He will remain in history as a separate goalkeeper. Not the most spectacular or the most eccentric, but the most constant, the most reliable. In Marseille, he is and will remain a legend, the one who protected OM cages as we keep a house.
Fourth 2018 world champion to hang up the crampons after Blaise Matuidi, Adil Rami and Raphaël Varane, he was the guardian of a generation, but above all a human benchmark in a world where loyalty is rare. By watching for others, it has become immense. The goalkeeper leaves, the man remains, and his trace will never fade. In French football, he is now a figure of respect and elegance.
