Emmanuel LANGELLIER, Media365, published on Saturday December 27, 2025 at 10:48 p.m.
Aged 60, Joël Fréchet is the new coach of Tahiti. He is preparing to begin his new adventure with relish.
A great, relatively unknown man from Olympique Lyonnais is about to move into a completely different universe. He did a lot of things in Lyon and here he is going to move from the Rhône to Polynesia, gaining degrees and rank across thousands of kilometers. Former OL player for 7 professional seasons in the 1980s then educator in various positions between 2005 and 2025, Joël Fréchet became the new coach of Tahiti at the age of 60.
A life in Lyon and Tahiti from now on
“Patrick Jacquemot, former FC Valence goalkeeper in particular, is technical director of Oceania and contacted me. He told me that Tahiti was looking for a coach. I spent around ten days there in the fall, I enjoyed the culture and the values instilled. The same ones instilled at Olympique Lyonnais for twenty years. There is a real project there,” says Fréchet, who will soon begin his new experience, in Le Progrès.
“I’m going to live there from January. It will be an extraordinary adventure. I will be coach of the A team, but I will have an eye on the other teams, particularly the U19s. I will focus my work on the demands of competitions, and on tactics as well. My different experiences – on the training of boys, of women, on futsal – interested the managers”, describes the man who was recently technical director of the Rhone women’s academy.
“We won’t be world champions, but…”
Joël Fréchet, D2 champion at OL in 1989, will relish his new functions, also aware at the same time of his limited means. “We are not going to hide our faces: we will not be world champions, but we can qualify for a World Cup or win the Pacific Games. I also hope that we will be able to tour mainland France,” confides the French technician who will exchange with Marama and Pascal Vahirua, the two most famous Tahitian players in history.
