They are in the final. Two days after winning their last preliminary match on Tuesday against Turkey (2-0), the players of the French blind football team qualified for the Paralympic final on Thursday 5 September by beating Colombia (1-0). A match that the ‘Bleus’ have not experienced since the London Games in 2012. They returned from this edition with a silver medal around their necks after losing to Brazil (0-3). On Saturday they will challenge the world champions from Argentina for gold.
This sport, almost unknown in France, has emerged from the shadows – like goalball – during this Paralympic fortnight. The players have enthralled the public in a dream setting at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. As during the first four sessions, there will be shouts of encouragement and total silence to allow the eight visually impaired players (only the goalkeepers are sighted), wearing eye masks, to evolve on the pitch.
Because on the field, blind footballers, as French coach Toussaint Akpweh calls them, must listen to the ball equipped with bells, the information from the goalkeeper to defend as best as possible, that of the guide who is behind the opposing team’s goal and follow the coach’s instructions. Not to mention the vocal exchanges between them and the “see” (“I’m leaving” in Spanish) are the incessant words that each player who wants to grab the ball must say. This is the only way to make your position known to your teammates. Lots of noise, then, and in two languages.
“Every second counts”
“They are, above all, excellent footballers, with all the athletic, technical, mental and even tactical qualities that this entails.Toussaint Akpweh insists. But there is a fifth component: information management. When a visually impaired person leaves home, it is better, for example, to concentrate on the sidewalk than on the noise of the jackhammer coming from the other side of the street. » Frédéric Villeroux, the captain of this team, adds: “There are seven to ten pieces of data to manage at once. It is good to listen to all ten, but you have to manage the right one. Otherwise it is useless.”
This sensorimotor information processing mechanism is essential for making quick decisions. “It is certain that we [les non-voyants] We have very good hearingtestifies Gaël Rivière, player of the French national team. But that’s not enough. For example, the sooner you let the other players know that you have the ball, the sooner they will know how to position themselves. Likewise, the sooner you tell them that you have lost the ball, the sooner they will understand and the sooner we will adjust the collective strategy. Every second counts and every second lost benefits the opposing team. »
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