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4 May 2018
Gilles Eyquem, from social worker to football manager
Gilles Eyquem, the U20 France women's national team head coach since 2014, was not destined for becoming manager. Despite his past as a former regional technical advisor and a social worker, he opted for a successful coach career since six years.
Twenty-one years. From the end of his player career on 1991, to his appointment as the U19 France women's squad head coach on 2012, Gilles Eyquem waited more than twenty years before to become a professional manager. The fifty-eight years old man only trained in the amateur level, as he was player-coach at Agen and Cherbourg between 1989 and 1991, before to be in charge of Les Bleuettes.
But nothing predestined Gilles Eyquem to a coaching career. When we was in Agen, he was involved in the social life on the city and took action as an educator beside young people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. "I gradually became a social worker and got more and more involved in everyday problems affecting people in these districts, helping out families in need, he said in an interview on the FIFA website. It was a purely social thing and had nothing to do with football. I got a lot out of it on a human level and it’s been really useful for me in my coaching career".
Bergeroo and Jacquet as his models
It was the trigger that pushed him to come back on the grounds. Named as the regional technical advisor of Aquitaine and Bordeaux on 1999, he was called on by Philippe Bergeroo to incorporate his staff. "I was lucky enough to be Philippe's assistant when we won the U-17 European title in 2004 with the famous 'Class of 87', which featured the likes of Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri and Hatem Ben Arfa. Philippe is a wonderful person too and he taught me a lot about tactics and the psychology involved in working with players".
Also inspired by Aime Jacquet, who he rubbed shoulders with when he played for Girondins de Bordeaux, Eyquem described himself as a "father". "I give out instructions and I’m not afraid to raise my voice, if I have to. I like my players a lot and the hardest part of the job for me is making choices. It’s always heartbreaking to have tell a player that they haven’t made the squad or that they’re not going to play". If he won the UEFA U19 Euro women's championship on 2013 and 2016, he also lost in U20 women's World Cup final on 2016. The Cauderan born wishes to wipe off this bad memory during World Cup in August at home. The Sud Ladies Cup will be the perfect preparation for that.
Mathieu Lauricella
Credits photo : Getty Images
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