Fifth season with Soyaux for Gwendoline Djebbar, who was tenured in the first two games against PSG (1-1) and LOSC (2-1) where she will be the author of one of the goals of the victory. 180 minutes of play and a goal scored for the player, who is coming back from a long period of injury and rehab. Interview.



Football Hearts - Two games played, one goal scored, how do you feel at the start of the season?
Gwendoline Djebbar - It's going well, I feel good, much better than before (nervous laughter). I took my marks on the field, I feel good physically, so necessarily it feels. This is not the top yet, I hope better but it's already not bad.


Football Hearts - You were tenured in the first two games of the season, but I felt that you released at the end of the game. Was it fatigue or your injuries that come back at that moment?
G. D. - Yes the match was maybe a little long. Faced with Paris we ran a lot, so necessarily we left feathers. After I got a little injured, it was starting to pull on my thigh so yes maybe it was a bit long but it's much better.

I still come from afar despite everything, it's been two years, finally can be a good year and a half where I had a hard time so already playing twice the 90 minutes, it's very good.


Hearts of Soccer - Next game against Albi (4-1 out and 3-1 dom last season) your teammates will fall on a revanchist team and who wants to take these first points? (injured after the LOSC, Gwen Djebbar will not take part in the match)
G. D. - This is a super important match for us. These teams, they are more or less worn [by their public]. We will have to take points, even if it is outside, even if it is a rough team ... We will try on our side to play the game, to play with our qualities and if we manage to develop our game, we should be able to beat Albi and that's what I hope.
We are expecting a complicated match. They want to take their (their) first point (s), they know very well that it is against us that we will have to try to take them. We know what we have to do, even if we move, against Albi these are points that we must win. For the maintenance it's super important. The group is motivated and wants to go for this victory.


Hearts of Foot - It's been 12 years that you play in club, you started at Monteux, before joining the Celtic Marseille, then Nimes, Albi and Soyaux now. How do you see all these passages from one club to another?
G. D. - Yes Monteux, it was the first girls' team. For me [the transition from one club to another] it was trainer, I enjoyed changing teams, see other players, other ways of working, other cities too. When you're in Marseille or Albi, it's not at all the same life. It has been good experiences. To have to integrate in groups, to prove oneself also, it was beneficial for me.


Hearts of Foot - So I also saw that you made a passage from Nimes in D3, before your passage in Albi and return in D2 with Nimes. Did you keep good contacts with the club?
GD - Yes I went to Albi to play in D2 and when the family was starting to miss me a little, and I could not find my account in only football, I went back to Nîmes when they reached the D2 . They re-contacted me and I wanted to get closer to my parents, so it was the opportunity to seize and the opportunity to be a little at home. Before having other desires (smile), want to see the D1 and go to Soyaux.


Soccer Hearts - Can you say that you're a Southerner?
G. D. - (smile) Yes anyway, I love my South (laughs).


"I understood everything I missed [for the elite]."


Football Hearts - Do you have the best season of 2014/2015, even if the previous one was as prolific in terms of goals for you and you played more often?
G. D. - Yes [2014/2015] this is my reference season, where I felt the best, I had my first season of D1. I understood everything I missed [for the elite]. It was my most full season, let's say. I had also been spared from injury because I had not had much on this season. So that I could do matches, I had the pace, so it was one of my best seasons.


Hearts of Foot - So I asked two people who are very close to the club Soyaux, Manu Cahu and Erwan Chapel to have a little bit of information about you, we do not necessarily find on the net or we see not us.
Manu told me that you are "the most smiling player of the team ... she has a lot of humor and she likes to make the clown I saw it at the time of the official photo." Is that all right?
G. D. - Yes I have the joy of living, I like to get to workout with a smile, I like laughing too that's true. Not necessarily make the clown, but room a little girlfriends.

"We never see that in women's football, it's more in men's football."


Hearts of Football - I noticed on the two matches that I saw which one in the Camp of the Lodges that you were rather hargenous, temperamental ...
G. D. - (laughs) That's right? No it was the atmosphere of the game, besides I loved the fans, even if they are against us, it was funny, we never see it in women's football, it's more in men's football . So it's rather funny, maybe after that on the ground or in atmospheres a bit peculiar I can be a little closed I do not know. But I like to mess around, I do not really get serious. But of the character that by cons I have.


Football Hearts - Erwan Chapel was a little more self-explanatory and told me that you have a big relationship with your family, it matters a lot to you? Your dad comes to see you often in match what seems?
G. D. - Yes it's super important, it's my base, it's my benchmark. When I have a free moment, I go to see my parents, besides they go up this weekend.
(smile) Yes my dad, my parents and even my brother are my biggest supporters and they like to come and see me play. It's important to the family, especially when I had my injury problems all that.


Hearts of Foot - So I also know that you have been twice removed lands according to Erwan: Gwendo, it is 2 terrible injuries alone to Juvisy to Maquin (J17) 13/03/16 and against Juvisy to Soyaux ( J18) the 02/04/17.
G. D. - Yes, that's it. The first crusader I was operated on, the second there was no need for surgery. It took away more than a year and a half from the fields.


Hearts of Foot - How did you live this moment and spent these caps? Because we know that it strengthens each time, but we are always eager to return to the field and it increases our tenacity on the field in the first game.
G. D. - What I found the hardest is to be non-existent, to be useless. We spend our life in football and during an injury we have nothing, we have more training, we have more matches of the weekend. The fact of being operated is difficult to live, to have all this rehabilitation too, but we are very busy anyway. To see girlfriends play, it's hard because we feel a little forgotten. It is this feeling that is a bit difficult. It must be well surrounded in this moment and say that it is a bad passage. When we return to the field, it strengthens us mentally.


Football Hearts - The goal you scored against the LOSC in the second game of the season was the cherry on the cake for you then?
G. D. - (laughs) Yes, it's Laura [Bourgouin] Boubou, who puts me a good ball, a cake and me suddenly after I have more than finish. So the goal is really an explosion of joy, because we talked about it in the team (laughs). Siga had scored against Paris SG and it had been a while since she had not scored too and we had a little bit of a bit of it. In the end I scored against Lille, so it was beautiful, I kept telling them that I would never score again and finally I arrived.


Football Hearts - So I know that you went through the France B team, did you play matches? Competitions ?
G. D. - No, I did an internship in 2015 and we had a friendly match against a Paris team.

Hearts of Foot - I read one of your interviews on Charente Libre (the local media in Soyaux) and you said this sentence: "It was great to wear the equipment of the team of France, to don the shirt hit the rooster "
G. D. - Yes it's a little dream of all those who play in D1 I think at a given moment, if there is a little ambition. Of course when we arrive at Clairefontaine, we are a little pampered, it is a very beautiful experience. In addition to wearing the shirt of the team of France, it is still our country, it is the must in a career.


Football Hearts - Your goal today is to jump in with the B and maybe the A? Corinne Deacon told us that the door was open to everyone so that should motivate you even more?
G. D. - My goal really is to please myself and get back to my level because with all the injuries, it was too long for me to have other goals in mind. It will come if I am successful in club.
Of course in the heart of ourselves we always have this ambition otherwise we would stop the football I think. But if it falls on me, I would say no, that's for sure. The arrival of Corinne Deacon, it can be only positive, it leaves a chance for everyone. It pushes us in club to surpass itself, it can be that beneficial.


Soccer Hearts - How do you see this season then for you?
G. D. - I want to play as much time as possible, I want to help the team to keep up, to achieve this goal and personally have great benefits too. I would really like to have fun and play a full year, it's also important to be able to make a full year without injuries, without glitches ... There I am dismissed for Sunday because I am injured but at the limit a match it is not very serious. I must be able to start for the rest of the season.


Football hearts - The new coach this season is Sebastien Joseph (ex-Rodez) I feel he has brought something more, it is more strategic, more tactical on the ground side of Soyaux?
G. D. - Yes, that's it. Already we train more so we have more time to work [our automatisms] and it really has well-defined principles, principles of play and it tries to make us understand as and when training. There are trips that such and such a player must have at such a time, these are aspects that were not worked before.


Hearts of Soccer - To talk about your game personally, you're a physical player who likes to hit, even if you play full axis, you also like to overflow. I defined you well? Do you like to be withdrawn?
G. D. - It's hard to define myself and it's hard for me to judge myself (laughs). I like to have the ball on my feet, shift, give good balloons to my teammates. I am no longer the player who will make the pass, the limit to hit to try to find the offset.
Yes, I am the shadow player on the field.


Hearts of Foot - Last question if I'm not mistaken, you work in the district of Football of the Charente, as in charge of the development of the women's football?

G. D. - I am no longer there, I have finished my contract. That's what I was doing to develop women's football on the Charente. It took a lot of time, it was very restrictive and especially with the pace that Sébastien [Joseph] imposes compared to training, it was really impossible to handle both.
Today, I have a team at the club, I graduated, I passed my BEF last year.


Soccer Hearts - Do you see yourself coaching at the end of your course? In D1?
G. D. - I would like. From D1 I do not know (smile), we must first start at the bottom but it can be something that I would like yes.


Photo: Manu Cahu Sports Photographer