Fabien Mercadal: “In Caen, in Ligue 1, I was not ready. I should have stayed at Paris FC”
It was with some relaxation that QRM saw the LFP Disciplinary Committee award him victory, by sanction, against Nancy (J35. April 22). In the minds of the Norman rulers, this decision could perhaps not be doubted. It must be said that when the match was stopped, at 40′, following the throwing of smoke from Lorraine supporters, the “Rouge et Jaune” were leading 3-0. With these three additional points on the clock, Quevilly-Rouen catches up with Rodez – surprise winner of the Toulouse leader, Monday evening (his first success in 2022!) – but remains in a play-off position; the fault with a less good goal difference (- 13 against -17).
“It’s a fail. I did not manage to weld the group, the club, the supporters”
As a result, Fabien Mercadal’s team will play part of its future against SMC on Saturday, during the 37and day of Ligue 2. A stadium that the seinomarin coach knows well. And for good reason, he led the Caen club in 2018-2019, including the last four months in tandem with Rolland Courbis. Punctuated by a relegation to the second division, this exercise had proved painful for Malherbe and the technician from the Gorges du Verdon. Four years later, the scar has not yet healed for the man who already returned to d’Ornano last season, in charge of Dunkirk.
“Of course I regret that it ended like this. It’s a failure. if it can please, I take full responsibility for the descent of Caen”, we appointed Fabien Mercadal in early January, a few days after his appointment as head of QRM. With the “Rouge et Bleu”, the man who also coached Tours, Dunkirk and Cercle Bruges in Belgium has lived, to date, his only adventure in Ligue 1. A discovery of this level which played a role according to the main interested party .
A Caen context poorly assessed at the time
“If we had been in Ligue 2, maybe I would have made it because I know this championship very well. But here, for a first experience in Ligue 1… Ligue 1 is not not Ligue 2, the players are different, the expectations as well as the media exposure”. The Quevillais coach does not hide it: he has “suffered from this media exposure”. “I believe there has been harassment from some media”Judge Fabien Mercadal, considering that some national newspapers have fought hard. “Why? I don’t know. Today, with a little more experience, I would do some things differently”. But for the technician, this is not the only reason that explains his failure at Stade Malherbe.
“I’m not looking for an excuse, but there were problems at the time with the change of president“
“I will be very honest. To go to Caen, in Ligue 1, I was not ready. I should have stayed at Paris FC. The president of the PFC (Pierre Ferracci) warned me: “You’re going to regret leaving. And I regretted it”underlined the coach when we interviewed him in the columns of our magazine (read n°44). “I should have declined this proposal. I could have afforded because I was already under contract with a club, a nice club. I had worked on the plans for the new training centre. But I have this defect, comfort bothers me. A young man from Paris FC told me: “Coach, you don’t like comfort”. I crave challenges. A QRM is the same. You know, I could very well have stayed at home”.
If he was aware of the complicated context revealing the weed club at that time *, Fabien Mercadal had not perceived how deep the evil was. “I’m not looking for an excuse, but there were problems at the time with the change of president, internal problems. The state of mind around the club was a bit heavy”. If it has ever been necessary to resign; “No one would have made me let go”the QRM coach does not only retain the negative aspects of this trying season at the head of the SMC. “My pride is to have finished it. We analyze it as we want but we could have fired me before. Nobody at the club wanted to do it. Maybe that means that the internal analysis was different from what people have been able to do from the outside”.
> L2. D37 – SM Caen (9and – 47 points) / Quevilly-Rouen (18and – 34 points), Saturday May 7 at 7 p.m. in Ornano.