Soccer: The Bishop and the coach

Jul 13, 2018

FRANCE: The 2018 FIFA World Cup is underway in Russia and teams from 32 countries will compete to see which nation has the best men’s football (soccer) formation on earth.

Arnaud Bevilacqua for La Croix marks the beginning of the world’s most widely viewed sporting event by speaking to two brothers whose lives have been marked by “the beautiful game.”

Arnaud Bevilacqua: Football is family history for you. Your grandfather founded the Roumazières Club in Charente, your father was its director, you and your brothers all played there…

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: We grew up in a village with 3,000 inhabitants during the baby boom. It was a small industrial town, with families who came from all over. The only thing there was football. All the children played it.

Bernard Blaquart: It wasn’t street football but football in the fields … We played all the time, and everywhere: behind the church while waiting for Catechism class, in the school yard…

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: Our eldest brother Jean-Pierre, the most passionate one, encouraged us. I can still picture us at home, my brothers and I, cleaning our shoes on Sunday evening in the laundry room when we returned from football.

Do you see any similarities today between your respective functions of bishop and coach?
Bishop Jacques Blaquart: Parallels can be drawn between them: the team spirit, the gift of self. What I learned from football serves me today. Everyone has to give his best for the good of the group.

You have to ‘give it your all,’ as they say. You succeed only if you are really in communion with one another. If everyone on a team is individualistic, that doesn’t work.

Bernard Blaquart: Yes, there are certain common values: humility, tolerance. In football, you play for an extremely diverse public, whether as professionals or in the youth teams. You also convey educational values, particularly in the training centres.

Bernard, have you always felt you wanted to be a coach?
Bernard Blaquart: I ended my career as a player after an accident that forced me to stop, and very soon after I began to coach. I have always had this desire to be an educator, to pass on what I know to children.

And you, Monsignor, would you have been able to coach?
Bishop Jacques Blaquart: I wanted to be an educator to take care of others. I am doing so in another way today. That’s something we share, with Bernard, but also with our brother François (national technical director of the French Football Federation from 2010 to 2017).

Growing up in a large family, in which everyone has to play his part, plus the example of our grandfather and of our parents must be the origin of this concern for others.

We were lucky to have grown up in a village with people from just about everywhere. That’s something you find in sport as in the church. Because of our background, we don’t just keep to ourselves.

Have you ever imagined yourself as a priest, Bernard? And what do you think of your brother’s vocation?
Bernard Blaquart: I have never asked myself that question (laughter). I turned to football very quickly before becoming an educator. I’m drawn by my brother’s vocation.

I have a lot of admiration; I’d like to talk more about it with him. I’ve always felt like asking him a lot of questions, which I never do. I notice his aura. You sense that he’s happy. I came to see him for his inauguration here. It’s always very impressive.

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: I am also proud of my brother. He went through some hard times, but I’m happy to see that he is finally managing to attain plenitude and great success.

Bernard, you have managed training centres; is football always a place of education?
Bernard Blaquart: In the training centres, we always have heavy responsibilities because some youths are sometimes homesick, far from their families, in the middle of their teenage years, a complicated time.

I always remember a boy who told me: ‘If I didn’t have football, I would have been a delinquent.’ They come to play football, but they continue their education and they also learn to respect the rules of living together.

The aim is also to train them to become men, to prepare them for life, because few of them will become professionals.

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: John-Paul II, himself a great sportsman, used to say that in sport, the Church created patronages because it realised the force of the saying: ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body.’ In sport and in the Church, we strive to build the human person. You are happy when a young man is at ease with himself, when he knows the rules, when he’s learned to surpass himself and to live with others. We have the same goal.

Is it team spirit that inspires both of you?
Bernard Blaquart: In football, players like to be in the limelight, whereas the team is the star. You have to succeed in getting them to live together, to accept one another in spite of their differences.

To play well with your partner, you also have to know him well. That does not happen from one day to the next. A coach pays attention to that because you cannot teach a player to kick a ball when he’s already a professional.

It’s this human adventure that is left in the end. When I was crowned best coach in the Ligue 2, I saw that as a reward for the entire club.

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: I, too, am nothing without the people who work with me. I manage more than 11 players.

My role is to foster the ties between priests so that they take care of one another, among other things. It’s relations that are important.

I am not there for results even if, naturally, I set myself goals and I launch new projects; but what makes me happy is when I sense a communion between people and they form one body, to quote Saint Paul.

Football is a sport in which people often show their faith without any complex. What do you think of that? Bernard Blaquart: You have to be careful here. I’ve already had to refocus some players who prayed in the dressing room. I think faith must remain at the door. It must not be a source of conflict.

On the other hand, I’ve sometimes discussed it out of curiosity; since I knew nothing about [Islam], I’ve talked with Muslim players.

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: I, too, feel like talking about my faith, but I must do it with respect for the other person, otherwise dialogue is not possible. During matches, you often see a player make the sign of the cross. I am wary of that type of external demonstration in football.

What I’m interested in is what you do afterwards, how you live your faith concretely.

What message can the just-opened World Cup give, beyond football?
Bishop Jacques Blaquart: When people speak of football, they soon start talking about corruption, doping, money. That exists, but these abuses are simply a reflection of what happens in society.

Let’s not forget the unifying aspect of this planetary event that is viewed by billions of TV spectators. In 1998, I was a parish priest and the chaplain of a community of the Arc.

There were 60 of us looking at the final between France and Brazil in an extraordinary atmosphere. I had told my sacristan that he could ring the bells for a quarter of an hour if France won.

Bernard Blaquart: I remember that in 1998, we were in the streets with a huge crowd. We doubtless may have exaggerated with “France, black-white-North African” but it’s true that, at that moment, everyone was together. Without wiping them out completely, of course, sport can also calm, at least momentarily, the tensions between certain countries.

How are you going to follow the competition?
Bernard Blaquart: I am going to look at a good number of matches. I want to see good football and, from a professional point of view, look at the lessons that can be drawn. I think that you, Jacques, are going to see more than two or three…

Bishop Jacques Blaquart: I’m not sure, but I took the time to note down the times of the matches and to warn my secretary not to set appointments for such and such a day (laughter). If France goes far, I’m certainly going to look at the last matches.--LCI (international.la-croix.com)

To be continued in the next week.