What do you become ? Fabrice Fiorèse excels in the area… of restoration! – Series: what are you becoming?
Thirty-four years old is quite early to hang up the cleats, among professionals. However, Fabrice Fiorèse did not flinch: “I was no longer in tune with French football. Maybe I was already old. When I was young, I shined Pascal Olmeta’s shoes at the Lyon training center. Mentalities had changed. Physically, my position required a lot of physical condition and these efforts, at 34, were more complicated. My decisions may not have always been considered in my career, but this one has been. Without regret, the former Guingampais and Lorientais, 46 years old today, broke his contract with Troyes in August 2009.
“I said to myself, come on, now I’m going to take it easy for 35 years! (laughs). The first years were fine, then I realized that I had to take care of myself, physically and psychologically. This is not the example of life that I wanted to give to my youngest daughter, who hardly knew my life as a footballer. So I asked myself questions. And I found a lot of similarities between catering and my first life: uniting a team, pulling it up, the sense of the collective…
Since 2015, I have been co-owner with my wife and Mr. Pokora (the singer) of the restaurant The Alpine, in Annecy (Haute-Savoie). My days are busy, I invest myself 300% in it: I do the reception, placement, collection, service… During covid-19 I did the cleaning, I vacuumed and mopped the floor. I may do more than a normal boss, but I have no boss consideration. There’s only cooking that I don’t do in the restaurant! We have been lucky for six years that it has worked and we refuse people, it’s a luxury. We are often full. On TripAdvisor, we were among the 10% of the best restaurants in the world in 2020 (Travellers’Choice winner)! It’s the equivalent of a Champions League for us! It’s a great human adventure, with my wife too, who does everything beforehand. Sometimes people recognize me, others don’t and say to me: ‘I heard you at the table over there, are you Fiorèse?’ And they’re sorry they didn’t recognize me, but that’s normal, I have white hair and wrinkles now! They are embarrassed that then I am fully in my restaurant! The main thing is that they were well eaten”.
Native of Chambéry (Savoie), Fabrice Fiorèse settled in “la Haute”, in Annecy, for a kind of return to the fold: “When you want to do business, because the goal is still not to lose money, Annecy is the best. There are people all year round, summer and winter. In catering, the season is a difficult thing, and here, the question does not even arise. I feel like a fish in water. I see similarities between the Savoyards and the Bretons in terms of human values: when you are appreciated, you are appreciated at your fair value and people don’t turn their backs on you. I have not returned to Brittany since the end of my career, but we are considering it. We stayed in touch with Ronald Thomas (guardian coach at Guingamp), we saw each other this summer and we promised to meet again in Brittany. It would be cool to come and see a match at Roudourou, I only have good memories of this stadium”.
The soul of the sportsman and the competitor seems to be intact, with Fabrice Fiorèse: “We play small five-a-side football matches, from time to time with friends. They tell me to take it easy, but I don’t like to lose, it seems that I’m a bit harsh sometimes… (laughs). Otherwise, I talk to my wife, we do two to three runs a week. Playing sports is a life balance. But it is a desire and a pleasure, not an obligation”.
“My career took off thanks to Guy Lacombe”
Trained in Lyon, Fabrice Fiorèse only played two games there with the pros, and it was at Guingamp, where he landed free, in the summer of 1997, that his career took off. “I discovered at the club, and in town, people with great values, who gave a good image of the Bretons, people who opened their doors to you and did not return their jackets”, he recalls. On the pitch, it also matched between him and Guingamp: five seasons, a promotion to D1 two seasons after relegation, 43 goals in 123 games “My career took off thanks to Guy Lacombe (coach of En Avant between 1999 and 2002), he was the first to trust me, it was a click”. Having left for Paris SG in the summer of 2002, Fiorèse discovered the complexities of a high-level career. Player as unpredictable on the field as outside – “You should not cheat in life” – the Breton by adoption attempted a return to his region of heart, in Lorient, in 2006, which turned out to be much less productive (8 games, 2 goals). “We all put the cart before the horse,” he slips. They provided to go up in Ligue 1 and had to be maintained. Me, physically, I was not ready at all, I came back from Qatar, with ten kilos too much, I was thirsty to do well, but when you are not physically well you pay cash. I tried to come back too quickly”. An almost miraculous double at the Parc des Princes, during the first day of the championship, then injuries tarnished his adventure. For the good of all in the end? “Lorient had taken the right wagon with Gignac,” concluded Fiorèse.