The “Jeu a la Nantaise”
The beggining
One of the most famous style of football in France was the “Jeu a la Nantaise” or “Nantes style of playing”. It started in the 60’s, during the tenure of the spanish-basque coach José Arribas, who tried to create an offensive football style in the Breton team which would be based on mobility and collectivity. Arribas, in an interview in 1966 would talk about his ideas:
«I believe that beyond the individual value of my players, which is pretty important, is the search of consciensce of their collective value. That is why, beyond a system or a playing organization, it is a playing conception that it’s said when it comes to talking about Nantes. Or, if you prefer, a state of mind that I can translate as: each and everyone of them tries to blend with the group and have confidence in their teammate.» — José Arribas
That said identity went intricate with the club and the supporters from the city, especially after their national success in the 60’s. Despite upheavals, financial strife and so, the “jeu a la nantaise” became a synonym from the football style expected to be played by the Naoned side. Les Canaris — the canaries — went famous from that, and even football and sociologists went on to try to understand this type of play and how it relates to a type of identification of supporters, symbolic capital and maintenance of this style for the next decades. Christian Bromberger, a well known french anthropologist who became relevant in the field of football and sports anthropology went on to make some commentaries about local identity and style of play, citing especially Nantes and its counterpart — Saint-Ettiene:
[the stylistic rivalry] «Is all about an imaginary relation, not so much in the manner man play and live, but in the manner they wish to explain the game of their teams and, after all, the way they want to express their own existence.
This turns out in such a manner that a confrontation between cities and neighbourhoods presents themselves as a stylistic war. In France is absolutely surprsing in the urban imaginary and in the representation of urban identities in the Saint-Ettiene style (that one with the great team from the 70’s, of hard work). Saint-Ettiene is a proletarian city and the player that left the most memories in the Saint-Ettiene team is a fellow argentinian, Osvaldo Piazza. He marked with his great courage, his great decision making, running all over the pitch even when the decisive conditions already have disappeared.
The opposite style is from Nantes. It is a metrical and regular style of play, brilliant for its short passing more than for its great [defensive] efforts. The Marsellaise style is also a form of stereotype of the city, the fantasia, the virtuosism… […] Christian Bromberger
Since that, it is sort of surprising that such identity continues to live on in Nantes, and of which I’ll try to make some points of how they played. For that, I’ll use one of the last great Nantes teams, the one that won the Coupe de France 2000 against a surprising amateur side, Calais.
The Coupe de France 2000 Final
The Nantes side who won this match, by 2–1 against Calais — a tough match, even with Calais being an amateur side, but really combative and direct in its approach of football — was trained by Reynald Denoueix, a coach that had direct link with Nantes style of football, and disciple of Arribas and Suaudeau — two of the great expoents of the “jeu a la Nantaise”. Its main focus were the approach of football as a state of mind: the pleasure of understanding [one another] — Le plaisir de se compendre — .
The approach within the game remained the same: pass the ball to generate spaces and the players exploiting these spaces, all coordinated as so to create havoc in the opposition. They would play with a high width, so they could stretch the opponents, while being less combative than the last great Nantes team, the one from 1995, which had Claude Makelele as one of the midfielders. This team was lighter and more technical, but not so strong physically, which rendered the team a bit more direct in its passing — instead of maintaining possession, it would try to break into attack as fast as possible — whilst maintaining the high tempo and the one-two passing style.
The Nantaise team who played the final, as I searched, was usually lined up by people as a 4–3–1–2, with Frederic da Rocha in the number 10 role, with Touré and Sibierski as the striker duo. That turned out, as watching the final, not to be so much of true. The team was so flexible moving with the ball, that it sort of looked like a 4–3–3 which would become sometimes kind of a 4–2–2–2 with no central strikers. That comes in handy with the notion of “Jeu a la Nantaise”: everyone moves and seeks to find pockets of space in which they can get the ball, and the passer will move to find on other pocket of space which they can be helpful to the team.
The notion of collectivity, which was also mentioned by Arribas in the 60’s continued in that winning team. At such moments, the team would play with Touré as right winger and Devineau as the left winger, with Sibierski or da Rocha playing in the number 9 position. In some moments, Sibierski, as he was taller and stronger physically, would position himself between the two banks of four (Calais played 4–4–2/4–4–1–1), but moving like in a false 9 role. Attracting the defense and opening spaces for other players to move themselves and attack the last line.
In the last image, you can see the team lined up in a 4–1–4–1/4–3–3, with Devineau open on the left, Touré on the right, but with da Silva in the number 9 position. He would rotate, especially when the ball went to the right side, to open space. He drifted right, trying to unmark himself from the defensive line plus the defensive midfielder, attracting them and creating space for one of the 2 midfielders (Carrière or Sibierski) to attack the space left. When it worked that way, the ball would go to the right flank, Touré went to the byline and cross behind for a midfielder arriving late at the opposition area.
Another nice touch by the Nantaise side is that the goalkeeper usually would work the ball with the feet, not looking for a long and high ball as teams used to in the 90’s/00’s, but instead play it to the defence or through the defence, trying to find a midfielder who could rapidly construct an attack.
Rotation is one of the key aspects of that team (and the most fun aspect). It would work as a team full of movements, which one player would cover the other, in order to create pockets of space which the players could use to advance and generate opportunities. Especially in set pieces, even those in defense, were always trained to attract the man marking and find a free man:
Its nice to see how they played that set piece. The central midfielder, then da Silva, would move out wide, dragging its marker. Then Devineau, who was at the left wing, would move inside. They would then rotate as so to open space. The defender plays the ball towards Sibierski, who was then at the number 9 position, he then moves back and make da Silva become the third man, when he passes it back to da Silva, who tries a through ball in the left wing.
These are just a few insights towards the style, which I guess may be helpful to rethink some of our current school of thought in playing. Nantes would play some beautiful football, with some tweaks that sometimes may have been forgotten in modern football.
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References:
Christian Bromberger — http://www.efdeportes.com/efd47/vision1.htm
Reynald Denoueix — Interview dans Les Spécialistes, Canal+, 21 février 2007 Voir sur Dailymotion [archive]
José Arribas — Entretien avec José Arribas par Jacques Étienne, « Nantes restera Nantes », Football Magazine n°80, septembre 1966, p. 8–10
