How does Pierre Dréossi recruit?

Since Pierre Dréossi arrived in summer 2002, no less than 106 players have signed a professional contact at the Stade Rennais. A total including the transfers but also contracts signed by young players out of the Academy, In this article, we will mainly look at the mutations (transfers and loans), 65 of them during the period. The aim? To try and give a fair assessment of players recruited by Stade Rennes since its general manager took his functions.

On which positions does Rennes recruit?

Because of the club’s vocation to train youngsters (with a policy of having 50% of the squad trained at the Academy, set up since 2002), it is evident that the youngsters are the core of the Rennes squad since several years. The recruitment of additional players is made in order to reinforce this base or to complete it.

On total, out of the 106 players joining the professional squad, there were 12 goalkeepers (11% of the total), 35 defenders (33%), 32 midfielders (30%) and 27 forwards (26%). Looking at the same figures for Academy graduates only, we note that more players are trained at midfield (53% of players turning pro play at those positions), a bit less in defence. Does it show that Stade Rennes is failing to train enough players to strengthen its backline? Probably not, many players trained at midfield at the Academy were successfully repositioned in defence (Mbia, Danzé and Bourillon are prime examples).

Furthermore, the important quantity of defenders recruited can be explained with the turn over that strikes this sector of Rennes’ squad in particular. Since 2002, only one defender recruited externally spent more than three seasons at the club, Rod Fanni (three seasons and a half). In average, a defensive recruit spends less than two years in Rennes. Except goalkeepers, no other position sees its player stay such a short time at the club.

The loans, a rarely used strategy

Since he arrived in Rennes, Pierre Dréossi has only rarely brought in players on loan. Only eight joined Rennes in this way, and three out of four were defenders. Only two players were exceptions to this rule: Ivica Mornar (striker) and Dudu Cearense (midfield). In most cases, and for various reasons, the loans weren’t highlt successful. The purchasing option was only activated in the case of three players. These were Abdeslam Ouaddou, John Mensah, and more recently John Boye, whose stay in Rennes is far from convincing to this day. In some occasions, the experience was terrible enough for the club to decide returning the player before the term of his loan, as it was the case for Grégory Vignal, bluntly returned to Liverpool at the end of 2003.
With years, the number of loans has considerably diminished, with only Boye and Djimi Traoré arriving in Brittany in this way since Mensah’s successful loan period.

Only one Breton

Out of 65 players recruited (loans or transfers), there has been:

• 24 players of French nationality [1]
• 20 players of an African nationality
• 13 players of a European nationality (outside France)
• 6 players of a South-American nationality
• 1 players of a North-American nationality
• 1 players of an Asian nationality

Announced with the Bosman ruling in the late 1990s, the “globalisation” really hit Rennes squad since 2002. The combined presence of USA’s Bocanegra and Japan’s Inamoto in 2009 were a symbol of this situation. This globalisation is to the detriment of French players, although they still represent more than a third of arriving players. One would also note than only one player born in Brittany was recruited by Pierre Dréossi : Arnaud Le Lan in Summer 2002. All other Breton players in the squad have gone through the ranks of the Academy.
The recruitment of French players is favoured when it comes to the goalkeeper position (five out of eight players recruited at this position are French), much less when the club looks for a forward (five out of seventeen).

After France, the Ghanaian (Boye, Gyan, Issah & Mensah) and Swedish (Edman, Hansson, Isaksson & Källström) nationalities are the best represented in Rennes’ recruitment, with four players each.

Brazil (three players) follows, and constitutes half of the South-American contingent. Going against the image of Brazilian and Argentinian striker, Stade Rennes has recruited players at various position on this continent, with two defenders (Adailton & Loeschbor), two midfielders (Dudu Cearense & Fleurquin) and two forwards (Emerson and Montaño).

Focus on the African recruitment

The african continent is the second provider, with twenty players recruited. To which we could add five players from the Academy (P. Diop, Do Marcolino, Mbia, N’Guéma and Oniangue).

Among these twenty players, half are defenders and only three play at midfield (15%). Eight were recruited directly in Africa, while six were already playing in France. The other six arrived from another European country (Germany, England, Italy and Ukraine).

In average, at the time they are recruited, the African players are younger (22,3 years) than the general average (25 years). A French player transferred to Rennes is in average over 27, whereas Europeans (not French) are a bit younger than the general average (24 years).

When an African player is recruited directly on his continent of birth, he is almost always very young. Only one of the eight players in this situation was over 21 when he signed his contract: It is Felix Katongo, 23 years at the time. The current trend is even for a more and more anticipated recruitment. In 2005, Stade Rennes recruited Burkina Faso’s Amadou Coulibaly, 21 years old. Two years later, three 19 years old players joined the club: Elderson Echiejile, Benjamin Moukandjo and Fabrice N’Guessi. Finally, this season, two players aged 18 have been recruited, in Kamal Issah and Pape Malick Kandji.

A recruitment in France and in Europe

Among the 65 transfers recorded since 2002, only twelve players have been recruited while playing outside Europe. Alongside the eight African mentioned earlier, the others are Dudu Cearense (in Japan), Emerson (in Qatar), Adailton (in Brazil) and Loeschbor (in Argentina).

In twenty eight occasion (or 43%), the selling club was French, in twenty five occasions (38%) it was a club from the rest of Europe. Once more, only one transfer was completed with another Breton club, it was Arnaud Le Lan’s in 2002 (FC Lorient)

After France, the recruitment unit’s favourite “hunting ground” is England. Eight players were recruited there, half of them in a loan move. These Premier League players are often a bit older, with an average age of 27.3 years at the time they are recruited.

When Stade Rennes hires a player in the French Championship, it is most of the time a French player. Only seven foreign players (out of forty-one recruited by the club) have been recruited from other French clubs. Among these seven players, six have got an African nationality (Apam, Hadji, Mangane, N’Diaye, Perrier-Doumbé and Utaka). The only exception is… Colombia’s Victor Hugo Montaño, recruited last summer.

Unsurprisingly, the French club that sold most players to Stade Rennes since 2002 is the Racing Club de Lens, with four players (Aubey, Mangane, Thomert and Utaka, who could be followed by Boukari in the near future). Following are Toulouse (Douchez, Moreira and Revault) and Montpellier (Barbosa, Carrasso, Montaño) with three players. We will also note that only one French club has loaned a player to Rennes : AJ Auxerre with Frédéric Jay during winter 2002-2003.

Finally, only four of the twenty-eight transfers in France have been made with players not yet in Ligue 1: Fabrice Catherine (Tours, L2), Tongo Doumbia (Châteauroux, L2), Jean-Armel Kana-Biyik (Le Havre, L2) and Cheick N’Diaye (Noisy-le-Sec, CFA). Elsewhere in the world, three more players have been recruited from a club not playing in their domestic top-flight: Laszlo Sepsi (loaned by a Romanian Division 2 club), Julian Esteban (Swiss Division 2) and Pape Malick Kandji (Senegalese D2).

The Academy, a warranty for faithfulness?

If we look at the “faithfulness” of players recruited, we discover that a player stays at the club an average two seasons after they are recruited. Long term stays are even extremely rare. Only one player remained at the club longer than three and a half year after he was hired: Cyril Jeunechamp (five years). One year will complete his fourth consecutive season at the club in June 2011, it is… Jérôme Leroy. Famous for his instability, the midfielder spent more time in Brittany than in any other club, to become one of club’s most loyal players.

A player recruited “only” plays an average 45 matches under the Rennes shirt. Among the players recruited by Dréossi, it is Rod Fanni who holds the record at the moment (134 games), but Leroy is most likely to overtake him soon, with 132 games to his name. Following in this ranking are Hansson (129 games), Jeunechamp (126 games), Frei (117) and Cheyrou (114). On the other hand, four recruits failed to wear the Rennes shirt in official competitions: Fabrice Catherine, Amadou Coulibaly, Benjamin Moukandjo and Fabrice N’Guessi.

Players trained at the Academy generally remain longer in the professional squad: An average 2.8 years. Two players have even spent six professional seasons at Stade Rennes: Jimmy Briand (six years and a half) and Étienne Didot (six years). Currently the three “older” (Danzé, Kembo and Marveaux) are playing their fifth professional season.

Trainees turned professional have all signed their first contract between 17 and 20. To sign earlier is not always a warranty of stability and loyalty to the club: the two players who turned pro aged 17 did not remain at the club beyond their first contract. Damien Le Tallec was transferred after two years, without playing a single match, and Yoann Gourcuff left after two years as well, in a conflict with the club’s management.

In average, a player trained at the club plays 49 games with the first squad before leaving for pasture news. A relatively low number, explained by the number of young professional who failed to play ten professional games before being released, more than by the number of players who expressed the wish to leave early. 56% of players trained at the club’s Academy have played less than 10 games with the first team. Among them, thirteen left because the club did not need them anymore. Only one exception, Damien Le Tallec requested to leave before playing a single match.

Several Academy trainees have played a high number of games with Stade Rennes. Briand holds the record at the moment (212 games), far above Didot (177) and Faty (142). Danzé and Marveaux have played a bit over 120 games each with the professional team at the moment.

Always younger ?

Frédéric Antonetti keeps on repeating it since the beginning of the season: his squad is young. If it is the case, it is because Stade Rennes has decided to trust its Academy as well as because last summer’s recruitment was made in this way. In fact Rennes’ 2010 summer transfer was following a trend started in 2008: in average, the players recruited are younger and younger.

The 2010 year established a record in this domain under Dréossi’s management, with recruits aged an average 22.8 years. In 2005, the recruitment (Hadji, Utaka, Rochat, Mensah…) had approached an average of 23 years (23.3 in average) without making it under that mark.

At the end of the 2005-2006 season, the Stade Rennais of the Källström-Gourcuff-Frei era had collapsed, revealing its lack of consistency. The defensive flaws were visible, and the lack of experience of this team had been pointed. Therefore, over the next two seasons, Pierre Dréossi had concentrated on recruiting more experienced players, with a few player in their (Revault, Melchiot, Hansson, Leroy, Pagis, Wiltord...) and confirmed Ligue 1 players (Moreira, Cheyrou, Fanni, Thomert...).

Consequently, the wage bill knew a rapid inflation. Since then, the Rennes general manager did all his possible to try and reduce it. Hence the recruitment of younger players, also less demanding financially.

- Photos of Briand et Le Lan : srfc.frenchwill.fr