Jérôme Leroy forever
Publié le 5 June 2011 à 19h16 byEqually disconcerting and talented, Jérôme Leroy has left a mark at Stade Rennes in four years during which he delighted the crowds at the Route de Lorient. A player different to the others in his attitude, his skills and his ability to make the whole of his team shine. A virtuoso, who leaves with a legitimate feeling of bitterness towards his former management.
The first question that springs to mind, when looking at Jérôme Leroy’s case is: did he truly deserve this treatment from the Rennes management? Him, the aesthete, gifted with outstanding technique and a superb vision. Indeed, there is no doubt Leroy is different. Different of his colleagues in the French football of today, different because he breathes football, different because of the outspokenness he never abandoned since his debuts as a professional. Values that may well have prevented him from having the much bigger career he deserved, including some time with Les Bleus for example.
The player never seemed to really mind, however, and affirm he would even have refused an international cap for his own reasons: « The international squad needs competitors. I’m not one of them. I am a guy who wants to win, it’s different. If I lead 1-0 in the closing moments of a game, I try to score a second goal, then a third. An international player will blast the ball in the stands if he has to. And if I lose 4-3, I will still have enjoyed the game. In the French squad, I wouldn’t feel in my element. Les Bleus are an institution. Now it becomes something like a rubbish bin: everyone wants to be part of it, as if it was owed to them”, he declared to the Journal du Dimanche in December 2008.
This is what Leroy is all about, unpredictable both on and off the pitch, as on this afternoon of March 2008, during a game against Racing Club de Lens (3-1) when the Rennes playmaker sent the Route de Lorient into ecstasy with a goal out of this world. A superbly executed, subtle lob against a Vedran Runje left motionless on his line. A classy player, not so talkative in the press area, but with a unique talent that Stade Rennes were glad to see on the pitch week-in week-out. A talent the club wouldn’t keep on board for obscure reasons only known to Rennes’ management and coaching staff, and which will be difficult to explain to the supporters at the Route de Lorient, even for a 37 years old player.
Taking the roles of a spiritual father and a protector, since several months, especially with the younger generation, Leroy leaves Rennes with his head high after a more than reasonable last season in regards to his playing time (four goals and seven assists in 2.147 minutes, in all competitions). Those statistics are close to those of his first – and best – season with Rennes, when Leroy formed a superb pair with Rod Fanni on the right wing. In charge of Rennes’ game, the former Paris man immediately brought an added value to Pierre Dréossi’s squad, and justified the club’s policy to recruit players in their thirties in summer 2007. Finishing that season with ten assists, the most in the league (he was preceded by Olivier Monterrubio), Leroy guided the “Rouge et Noir” towards UEFA’s Cup qualifying round.
«Football is like the X Factor»
It took him until the latest stages of his career for him to settle down. A globe-trotter, he often felt the urge to move since he started his career as a professional, and had never spent as much time in a professional club as he did in Rennes. This also proves how attached he was to this shirt, this region that had also adopted him and where he thought he would be remaining. Football, however, is an ungrateful sport nowadays, and the sport is often lacking memory and tact towards a player who was an example on and off the pitch.
Despite two years below his true ability, Leroy had retrieved some energy in his role as an impact player during the 2010-2011 season. Within the physical model of football installed by Frédéric Antonetti and his management this year, the number 7 was making a difference, in the same way Yacine Brahimi did, by being a creator rather than a fighter. For those who wonder about his departure, Leroy has been acting in a surprising way several times this season, notably advising his young team-mate and new international Yann M’Vila to leave Stade Rennes in order to reach a new level, or by admitting his preference to finish fourth rather than on the podium, so to avoid some difficult experiences: “I could finish my career on a title, but so could twenty years old youngsters…”, he threatened laconically.
A youth that has changed very much since his debuts at the Parc des Princes, in the mid-1990s: “The young players are very self-confident, but this isn’t a problem. The problem comes from fame. Football is like the X Factor: when you’re on TV, you’re famous, but then you’re becoming an ordinary citizen again. The need to be recognised is pervert. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care. If I did I would not have joined Guingamp or Sochaux ». Or at Luis Fernandez’ Beitar Jersulam, since as different as he can appear, Leroy is as gifted to wrong-foot his opponents as he can do to any ordinary person.
His exile in Israel had surprised everyone in December 2005, when the former Laval player was returning to his best with the RC Lens. Six months later, he returned to the French League in Sochaux, where he earned a Coupe de France against Marseille, his first as a first eleven player. Indeed, he was only a substitute during Paris Saint-Germain victory in the competition in 2008. The PSG, a club where the supporters had taken a dislike to him when he returned in 2002. Two years later, as he played for Marseille, he had started a massive brawl by pouncing furiously on Laurent Leroy - surprised by the anger of his former team-mate – after a hard tackle. This is Jérôme’s « Mister Hyde » aspect, which would follow him throughout his career.
Leroy leaves with dignity
Over time, Leroy gained in wisdom and displayed the image of a welcoming man with exemplary professionalism, far from all the prejudices linked to his image and his name. The non-extension of his contract could therefore be harmful for the club’s image, even though Leroy wasn’t representing the club’s future. This decision can be questioned however, as the club’s management spent the season complaining about the lack of experience of the squads at key moments of the season. Having extended his contract twice this season already, was Leroy still bringing satisfaction to Stade Rennes’ coaching staff? Questioned on the topic, Frédéric Antonetti announced on May 21st, on the club’s official website, that his player remained more than just an added value, while expressing some concerns : « He became more than a complement player, but he won’t be able to keep on doing what he has done until now. At the moment, we’re asking him for a bit more than he is capable to do”. The foundations of an irrevocable decision.
As soon as the announcement was officialised, the Rennes playmaker (whose contract will expire on June 30th) tried to bring a first element of response by sending a few cutting remarks to Antonetti and Dréossi: “I’m glad the press exists, since I didn’t know I was released. On Wednesday I saw the coach, he was still thinking, waiting to know. I told him: +Since you are struggling to choose, I can tell you know that I won’t stay+. This is a reflection of my four seasons at the Stade Rennais, I don’t understand, I must have soiled the shirt. For them to behave in that way, I must have been unworthy of it”. Certainly not, Mr Leroy, it may well be that Stade Rennais wasn’t worthy of having you.
Jérôme Leroy’s top three goals with Rennes
- 1 : Rennes - Lens (3-1, 2007-2008 season).