Digard appointed Lens manager, twelve years after publicly criticizing new sporting director Leca

Didier Digard arrives on the Racing Club de Lens bench with unexpected baggage: his new sporting director is none other than Jean-Louis Leca, whom he had harshly attacked in the mixed zone twelve years ago.

On October 18, 2014, during Nice-Bastia (0-1), Leca — then backup goalkeeper to Alphonse Areola at Bastia — had waved a Corsican flag in front of the Nice crowd at the final whistle. The gesture sparked outrage: Nice supporters invaded the pitch, triggering a general brawl. A prefectural order had nonetheless prohibited at the time the display of any Corsican distinctive sign or emblem of a Corsican club in the Alpes-Maritimes.

Digard, Nice midfielder that evening, had not minced his words. “Eternal substitutes who want to create an image for themselves, to be loved by their supporters and who do anything to get it. An unknown player who came and ruined everything at the end. I don’t know him at all. I’m saying this without malice, sincerely. I’m not saying I’m a great player but… Anyway a great player would never have done that,” he had said. He added: “When I see him waving his flag and riling up the supporters, I wanted to get him sent off. He wasn’t at all happy about that, he really wanted everyone to notice him. He made a stupid gesture. I had never seen anything like it.”

Born respectively in 1985 and 1986, the two men belong to the same generation and have crossed paths several times in Ligue 1. But nothing at the time suggested that Leca would one day become Digard’s superior. Yet this is the configuration awaiting the two men at Bollaert, where they will have to build together the sporting project of the Sang et Or.