SM Caen. Johann Lepenant: “Recovery is a big collective job”
By Aline Chatel
Published on
In midfield, as in many positions when the team is complete, Stéphane Moulin probably does not waste much time when laying down the names of the players he will start on Saturday evening. For a while now, each match played has offered additional guarantees to the coach of the Malherbe Caen Stadium. John Lepenantwho has only missed two games this season (one for the Covid, the other for a suspension), is perhaps the first to fuel this momentum.
“We work on him a lot in training”
The blond with a smile added to his lips, always the first to celebrate victory with conquered supporters, was again amazing in front of Dunkirk, Saturday April 2 (2-1). He is everywhere, constantly harassing, scratching an incalculable number of balloons and bringing it all out cleanly. Without ever varying his speech one iota. “My first role is to recover balls. I try to do my best for the team. [Samedi] evening, it is true that I recovered quite a few balls. »
Beyond his individual performance, it is also the collective recovery that has again seduced. “We work a lot on that in training,” says the 19-year-old. We’ve been better at it for some time, we recover a lot of balls and we do it quite high. It allows us to attack quickly and score a lot of goals. » If the midfielders excel in this register, they are also well supported.
It starts with Alex (Mendy) and Nuno (Da Costa), who are the first defenders. They don’t let go of anything in front, it puts the opponent’s raises in difficulty and it makes it easier for us to recover. It’s a lot of collective work.
Work that pays, since Caen have taken ten points in their last four games. If everything was not perfect against Dunkirk (“we fell asleep a bit in the second half”), the dynamic remains excellent. At the end of the match, Johann Lepenant was quick to discover the result of Sochaux, fifth in the standings. “They won, but we will focus on us. “There is still a lot of fun to be had and points to be scored for the one whose market value has been reassessed at 3 million euros by the Transfermakt site.
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