On the occasion of friendly matches organized this weekend by the ASPTT Albi, we were able to meet the Tarnese women's team which is preparing for its third season in the elite. With the objective of maintaining the lead, Albi hopes to continue his great adventure in D1 and stand up to the teams attached to professional clubs and who settle progressively in the first division. A big challenge, but that the Albigensian club is ready to meet.

This weekend, Albi hosted what is best on the other side of the Pyrenees. Athletic Bilbao and FC Barcelona, ​​the last two Spanish champions in Primera Division. The two teams were welcomed in Albi, for a series of two friendlies against ASPTT and Montpellier, also in the game for this event.

These friendlies make it possible to carry out staff reviews for the coming season. As such, Albi coach Adolphe Ogouyon is still looking for several players who allow him to expand his group a few weeks before the start of the championship and the reception of Paris Saint-Germain Maurice-Rigaud stadium. Among its concerns, strengthening an offensive sector may be a little too fair to face the coming season.

On the side of the players already integrated into the workforce, preparation is in full swing. Since July 25, the Albigensians have already had thirty training sessions and a few friendlies. A period that also allows to identify injuries, and they were some to have been left to rest Sunday for the reception of Barcelona. A pre-season, where the coach insists particularly on physical and athletic work. A logical choice for a pre-season preparation, but which also corresponds to his goal of making sure that his players are able to physically hold against any opponent, hold the distance including against the teams of the top 4 in D1 .

It was also one of his concerns about the game against Barcelona, ​​to see how his team would behave, to observe the ability of his players to hold the distance against a team that robs you of balloons but also able to impose a high pressing that impedes the construction of the game. In sequence, Xavi Llorens, the coach of Barcelona, ​​has aligned an eleven close to his type team, and the players of Albi have been able to confront the very high level. If the final score

2-0 could be disappointing, the players came out of the match in admiration for the quality of play of their opponents of the day and the pride of having held the shock, especially athletically. The kind of games full of lessons, especially when you play Paris and Lyon from the first days of the championship.

Exist on the field and outside

To be respected in the field and outside is a motto that could be associated with Albi, which is not the city that we would associate spontaneously to football, whether it is female or male. However, Albi is a good example of a club that can exist alongside the professionalism that develops in women's football. Just like these friendlies face Bilbao and Barcelona, ​​two teams that will play the Champions League this season, the goal is to position Albi and not be on the sidelines of the high level.

This step goes hand in hand with the desire of the technical staff and the coach Adolphe Ogouyon to make Albi a club that radiates regionally and is able to attract talent that may exist in the region. And why not eventually make Albi, a club that is able to train players who can then evolve to the highest level at the ASPTT or elsewhere.

Ambitious projects for a club with an amateur status but which answer the question of the future of a club like Albi who managed to make a place in D1 for two years instead of doing the elevator as it happens regularly for clubs that go up from D2. It also involves a larger team around the coach, with a technical staff now composed of seven people including Sylvie Casonato, the last arrival as a field assistant to Adolphe Ogouyon, who will also be responsible for linking the players to a team. staff for the moment very masculine.

All of these issues are part of the daily concerns of President Bernard Espie. For his part, he takes this situation philosophically, aware of the path taken by the ASPTT to the first division with the accession finally obtained two years ago.

The Toulouse women of Albi

On the field, one of the ways that allowed the team to progress is the contribution of "Toulousaines". These are players who are studying in Toulouse, and for a number of them have passed through the poles hopes, either in Blagnac or Clairefontaine for Captain Anais Arcambal. The Albi club has managed to sign some of the players trained in Toulouse and Albi found an opportunity to play at the highest level next to their studies while the TFC is currently relegated to the lower level.

Among these "Toulousaines", Laura Condon will start her second season in Albi, after a summer crowned by a title at the Under-19 Euro (U19) with the France team. Authorized to take a vacation after the Euro in Slovakia, she resumed training in mid-August and prepares with her teammates the arrival of Paris in opening of the championship and where she could find some of her teammates of the French team . Beside football, Laura follows studies of information-communication, with the second year of her DUT.

=> Read interview Laura Condon

Originally from the region, his arrival in Albi allowed him to advance in his studies before dreaming of a possible professional career. The kind of projects that are kept in a corner of the head, knowing that opportunities are not yet legion in women's football. A modesty of the frame that does not go without a certain charm. ASPTT Albi is one of those clubs that have managed to retain an audience around the women's team.

A success that according to the staff of the club can be explained by the fact that the women's team of the ASPTT is the team by which high-level football has returned to Albi. Curiosity, pride of the Albigensians and local media who "play the game". In the stadium, every home meeting is attended by several hundred people. No less than 300 people last season to the thousand for the reception of Olympique Lyonnais.

Among the players, they are a few to earn a living with football, some federal contracts and contracts helped (jobs of the future). Among these players who are in Albi only for football, Cindy Perrault and new recruit of the ASPTT from Lyon. Third in the hierarchy of goalies behind Sarah Bouhaddi and Méline Gérard, Cindy Perrault was faced with the need to leave to continue to progress and especially play.

Already contacted by Albi last season, Cindy Perrault had chosen to stay in Lyon to continue its progression. Along with Sarah Bouhaddi, she believes he has learned a lot, a teammate she already regrets. International young French team, Cindy Perrault could be traveling to Papua New Guinea for the Under-20 World Cup. A selection that went through playing time in club and therefore the need to leave the cocoon Lyon.

In Albi, Cindy Perrault is not lost. She found in the Tarn two former teammates U19 OL: Maëva Manuel and Bettina Matondo with whom she won the national challenge under 19 years. There are also the girls met in the selection: Laura Condon and Manon Cazes. What to put it in confidence for his great debut in D1 in a few days.

The ambitions of the coach

The Albi season should center around the goal of maintenance. But Adolphe Ogouyon, the ASPTT coach, is attached to the need to produce games, to be able to rely on collective construction phases, hold the ball and not just operate in cons. Among the players on which he relies, Tatiana Solanet, author of a double against a Bilbao (3-0 win over a reworked team) and who face Barça has managed at times to loosen the grip Catalan by his technical quality, and its acceleration capability with or without balloon.

Symbol of this lack of complexity, the response of the coach when we talk about the arrival in D1 Bordeaux and Marseille, clubs with more important means and risk for Albi for the coming season. The coach Ogouyon tells us to be afraid of no one and that for two years, each time we announce Albi for the descent and that twice the ASPTT has managed to maintain. No reason that changes ...