After a year spent in Switzerland at FC Basel, Lindsey Thomas scored on his return to D1, three goals on this start of the season with Montpellier, in a team where the offensive sector is extremely dense. Meeting with a player who at 21, has already made a lot of way literally as well as figuratively ...

Football hearts: At the end of October, Montpellier lost to Paris (1-0). You have experienced this game from the bench. What was your feeling about this game, I guess there must be some disappointment ...
Lindsey Thomas: Yes, there is a bit of disappointment because we have not managed to put in place what we did well early in the season. From the bench, we're always a little frustrated because we want to go home and bring. Nevertheless, these are experiences that serve and will serve us for the next games we will have to play before the winter break.

 

PSG - Montpellier, a shock that Lindsey Thomas followed from the sideline (we see it from elsewhere ...)

CDF: Last year, Montpellier hung Paris and Lyon during the first leg. Do you think it will be possible to get points against Lyon?
L.T: Of course. Anyway, on a 90-minute match, everything remains possible, just be all together, concentrated. We know very well that in games like this, it's small mistakes that make the difference. We know that Lyon, they are just able to exploit the small mistakes that can be made against them.

It's all about staying focused, knowing what to do. [It's] also playing our luck because usually when you fall against a team that is technically stronger than us, it's not easy to have control of the ball. Here, it will be still trying to produce the game and not to deprive if we have the opportunity to have counters and try to be as effective as possible.

CDF: Last weekend, your championship match against Albi was postponed. How did it go, are you resting or are you going to have workouts instead?
L.T: Last weekend, we were fortunate to have two days to breathe a little. Nevertheless, on Friday we had a training match against Albi. [It] is always the same, we tried to be in the optics of the game The result was positive even if it remains a training match, we have consolidated automation in the implementation of our game.

"Always be decisive"
CDF: Precisely on this beginning of season, you had made a very good start of the season, collectively and individually, with 3 goals in 4 matches. What role does Jean-Louis Saez give you in this team?
L.T: I do not know if I have a specific role. All this is when the coach trusts me, it is to give him the maximum on the field. This is what happened at the beginning of the season, it worked rather well. After that there was a little time when I felt physically worse. But little by little it comes back.

 

In a very dense offensive sector of Montpellier, Lindsey Thomas is also talking about her with three goals on this beginning of the season

I focus first on working well in training. If it goes well in training, there is no reason that it goes well in match. All this is to be effective for and with the team, to play the others, mark if possible and always be decisive, as much as possible anyway.

CDF: You are in a team with a very heavy offensive sector with six attackers who have already scored at least once since the start of the season. How are you living this situation, with a lot of competition on the offensive posts?
L.T: I live it pretty well. After my year spent in Switzerland, I see things differently. So, I'm using this competition, the big offensive potential we have to learn every day in training with experienced girls like [Sofia] Jakobsson or [Laëtitia] Tonazzi.

Of course it forces us, being young to put themselves at their level. If you want to have play time or scrapes of matches, just be at their level and showcase our qualities because when we are young we think a little less and we play more on spontaneity. But it is true that with the age one becomes more mature, more serene in certain situations, in certain matches. that's what they teach us, bring us, and we need to use it to make a difference in the coming seasons.

 

"I took advantage of this year
to blossom »
CDF: You spoke about your experience in Switzerland, how was your decision to leave Switzerland?
L.T: As every year, we have an interview at the end of the season and I had my interview. I had not played a lot, it was a more or less difficult year. So, they offered to lend me to win playing time, to m'amerrir to gain confidence in myself and in my qualities, to gain experience in matches, and to have the rhythm of an entire season in the legs. I accepted this challenge. At first, it was perhaps to stay in France, after I said to myself: "stay in France, I already know the championship, I know how it goes", so I wanted to go see a little elsewhere. I almost went to Spain and finally it was in Switzerland, at FC Basel. And they welcomed me with open arms.

Lindsey Thomas in FC Basel, it was last season in the Swiss league

I was quickly put in the best possible conditions. The club was very welcoming, all the girls made my adaptation to the team easier. My integration went very well, and I took advantage of this year to blossom, to score goals, to have some play time, to get on my nerves too. So, I come back that grown from this experience

CDF: Women's football in Switzerland is growing. What does the championship look like there?
L.T: It's like everywhere, it's a two-speed championship. There are five / six teams that stand a little after the rest is a little more off the hook. When I take the case of FC Zurich, it's a little Lyon of our championship in France. They are a little above. It's always the same, you have to try to gain points against them.

After Basel, the team in which I was, if I have to make a comparison with the French championship, I would place them more in the middle of the table in our championship to us. After that, it's still a very good team to have time to play, to evolve when you're young, to be hardened. Even if I think that the Swiss championship, it remains a tone below our French championship.

"It was football first and foremost"
CDF: You traveled to Switzerland with football. But already your arrival in Montpellier and the metropolis has been a trip. Since you left at 15 years of Guadeloupe, that's it?
L.T: Yes at 15, I did a year in Bordeaux, in women's section in Mérignac. I played at the same time in Blanquefort and luckily we will say, there was Hoda Lattaf who had come to sponsor our section in Mérignac. She had heard of me as the "little half-breed" who was in sports section in Mérignac. She spoke to the former U19 coach of Montpellier, it was Nicolas Delépine at the time.

I came to do a tournament with them, it was two days, it was Yzeure, I remember. Following this tournament, I had an interview with Delépine and he left me a week to make my decision, because he wanted me to come to Montpellier. So I did not hesitate one second and I came.

CDF: Your U19 experience in Montpellier has been successful with many goals and two national titles. I imagine that for you it was two beautiful years?
LT: Yes, the first year, it was a little complicated because it was the first time that I arrived in a structure as framed, after U19 there were a lot of young and very good players like [Viviane ] Asseyi, [Faustine] Robert, [Charlene] Farrugia playing in the offensive area. It was not obvious, I had a little role of joker. And then in the second year, it's true, I had more of a titular role, I scored a lot of goals. It made me feel good in my progress and we were crowned twice in a row.

 

In 2013, during the victory of Montpellier in U19 national challenge, the second title in a row for Lindsey and Montpellier in the category

CDF: When do you decide to leave Guadeloupe, when do you feel it's the right decision?
L.T: In fact, I always played football in Guadeloupe, more precisely on the Saintes archipelago with boys. Of course I was the only girl who played football on my little island. At 15 and a half I had to make a choice, it was either I played with girls or I stopped definitely football. And since I did not want to stop football at all ...

My former coach at the time, Peter Samuel, came to make a tournament in Bordeaux, the Birdy Cup with the youngest members of my club, and in fact it was like that. I first validated my patent, then I came a week in detection in Merignac and after that I had a favorable opinion to come there.

So, I did not even think for a second. As soon as I had the opportunity to leave, it was so direct without necessarily thinking of going there, being alone or what. It was football first and foremost but continuing to reconcile studies with. It was a very important condition for my parents. Nevertheless, I left without hesitation.

"These selections have served me a lot"
CDF: In 2013, you are one of the U19 European champions with Les Bleuettes. You said that your selection at the time was a surprise. When we look at your statistics of the time (21 goals and champion of France U19), we think that it was rather logical ...
L.T: It was a surprise because I am a player who does not necessarily have a lot of self-confidence. So, even with good results, I always focus on what I'm doing worse, instead of focusing on what I'm doing well. Always this perpetual questioning. And when there is the reward that comes to the end, I do not expect it necessarily.

At the Euro U19 won by France. Here in a pool match against England

Being young, I always had this lack of confidence in me and I did not want to see what I was doing well. These were still topics that I was not comfortable with, and the effects of surprises for me when it seemed normal.

CDF: And precisely this title in U19 and third place at the U20 World Cup in 2014, I imagine that for the trust, it had to help you?
L.T: Yes, it helped me, because making selections always brings something. Of course I learned and suddenly we see things differently. This serves us for the future and it is on after these selections, we feel better when we come back in club, [with] more confidence, we dare to do more things. It is true that these selections have served me a lot for the continuity of my development.

CDF: In your Montpellier team, there are four players who have just left for the U20 World Cup. Have you talked about it in recent days?
L.T: No, not especially. We knew they were going to the World Cup. We talked about it a bit but nothing more, because we were still focused on the championship and this big game in Paris we had to fight so no it was not necessarily a topic of discussion. Maybe it will be when they come back in view of the route they will take.

 

Lindsey Thomas well surrounded, with Griedge Mbock and Sara Däbritz in the 2014 U20 World Cup semi-finals in Canada

CDF: And do you have a particular memory of this U20 World Cup two years ago?
L.T: Maybe I'll say the semifinal [against Germany] where I was. It marked me, but in the end, we lose very little [2-1] while we could have hoped for something else with all the opportunities we had. If we had more efficiency, I think we could have gone to the end of this competition and win the gold.

"Anytime we can go
knock on the door of the A "
CDF: You also won the University World Cup in 2015 in South Korea. I saw that you were studying STAPS, you intend to stay in the sport after your career in the field?
L.T: Actually, I was studying STAPS before going to Switzerland. I had to stop there because unfortunately it is not the same school curriculum. But then I resume my studies and I went on a BTS dietary because I want to become a sports dietician. Staying in touch with the athlete, it interests me greatly, knowing that dietetics, it interests me too. The skills to acquire, programs to do, follow patients more or less long term, it interests me a lot so yes stay in touch with sports and sports.

With the French University team at the Universiade in Gwangju in 2015 and a title reported by Les Bleues

CDF: You have recently been summoned to the France B team, with an internship at the end of October in Clairefontaine. How we live this kind of selection knowing that it is the team of France "B" and that I imagine the goal it is to be able to integrate the A?
L.T: It's a little like in the young selections except that it is the France B team, with the same state of mind, and to represent France of course. When we go, we know we have points to score, that in football it goes very quickly in one direction or the other, and to demonstrate that we have not been called for nothing.

The coach gives us the message that certainly, it remains the team of France B but at any time we can go knock on the door of the A. Find basic emotions take pleasure, be rigorous, work. It will first pass through the good club performance and once all this is met, there is no complex to have.

And of course, most of the girls who are in A went through the B or even the University. So here it is always stay in this perspective, the team of France B, it can be a door to go to the A if the good performances follow.

 

After reviewing the interview, Lindsey wanted to add a personal message to conclude this interview:

"Women's football is developing over the last five years, much more media coverage, including the benefits of the French women's team so let us continue to promote the sport.

For little girls who dream one day to be in our place, in their place in the women's France team and who will surely be the future of women's football have the means and the conditions to show their qualities and have the recognition that they deserve.

I also wanted to thank my parents, all my relatives, my friends who have always supported me. Also the people I met during my loan in Switzerland. I will give myself the means to reach my goals and to make them proud. "

Dounia MESLI