Euro 2024: “Comfortable but not luxurious, with a park suitable for walks”, the Blues have packed their bags in their base camp in Paderborn

The Premier Best Western hotel in Bad Lippsringe, a four-star with spa and adjoining park, has been welcoming the Blues since Wednesday. MAXPPP – Fred Dugit

The Premier Best Western hotel in Bad Lippsringe, a four-star with spa and adjoining park, has been welcoming the Blues since Wednesday. MAXPPP – Fred Dugit

L’hôtel Premier Best Western de Bad Lippsringe, un quatre étoiles avec spa et parc attenant, accueille les Bleus depuis mercredi. MAXPPP – Fred Dugit

The French team discovered its hotel and training ground in Paderborn, Germany, on Wednesday.
 

Red tile roofs, red brick houses. And green, "lots of green, I like green", laughs Kingsley Coman. No doubt, the French team and its winger arrived in Germany on Wednesday. And more particularly in Bad Lippspringe and Paderborn, two cities which will house their hotel and their training stadium during their stay at the Euro.

The whole thing, separated by around ten kilometers, forms a base camp, one more to add to the list of these towns or hotel complexes that have become synonymous with adventure or disillusionment in the history of the Blues. Münchausen in 2006 (read elsewhere), the disastrous Pesula Resort in Knysna in 2010, for the worse, or even Istra in Russia, for the better, and more recently Al Messila in Qatar: since yesterday, two new places are waiting to know the trace that they will leave.

They were carefully chosen by the French staff, with some members going there more than four times. Their choice fell on the Premier Best Western hotel, a four-star hotel in the small spa town of Bad Lippspringe (17,000 inhabitants), in the north of Germany, in North Rhineland. -Westphalia.

"User-friendly and functional"

At first glance, nothing flashy, no gilding like in Doha, but practicality, the watchword of Didier Deschamps and his men. "Above all, it must be user-friendly and functional", explained the coach in an FFF video. With his close guard, “DD” came to validate the white-walled establishment last January.

A total of 135 rooms, privatized and redecorated in tricolor colors, accommodate the French delegation of around 60 people, but also families when they are authorized to join the players during the competition. A piano also awaits music lovers Aurélien Tchouaméni and Eduardo Camavinga near the restaurant.

But if the establishment has particularly attracted attention, it is above all for its spa and its vast meeting rooms since transformed by the French team into a space fitness or physiotherapy room.

An air of déjà vu with the 2006 World Cup

Time has passed and there remains no survivor of this epic in the French team. But in 2006, during the World Cup in Germany, Raymond Domenech's Blues took up residence very close to Paderborn. Hameln, or Hamelin for the French, is in fact located just 80 kilometers and an hour's drive north of Paderborn.

Famous for its flute player, who chased away rats, the small town in Lower Saxony became the French base camp during the World Cup. And a sort of “bunker” for Blues holed up in Münchausen Castle, a five-star residence much more gleaming than today's Best Western.

The partners of Makélélé, Henry and especially Zidane had managed to escape from the building to reach an anonymous inn. Leaving hidden in vans, the Blues were then able to enjoy long barbecues without the staff.
Founding moments, later recounted “Zizou”, hero of a French team only stopped by Italy in the World Cup final on a whim.

As for the setting, no fuss either: the neighborhood is residential, the adjoining park is public and a private clinic is located across the street. Practical, again and again, for initial examinations in the event of an injury. "This functional side had been one of the reasons for our success in Russia", explains Guy Stéphan, Deschamps' deputy.

Be away from the hustle and bustle of the major German metropolises, while being able to go by bus to Düsseldorf and Dortmund, where the Blues will play their first and third matches of chickens, was also a criterion.

“Paderboring” and neighborhood

"We are always looking for peace, explains a federation official. There we are in something that resembles us, within the standards, spacious, not cramped, comfortable but not luxurious, with a park suitable for walks."

Except for the city's recent sandcastle festival, which earned Kylian Mbappé a several-metre statue, tranquility shouldn't be a problem. A little further, in Paderborn (150,000 inhabitants), which the locals nickname “Paderboring” (”boring” means “boring” in English), the local stadium, the Home Deluxe Arena, should not receive training beyond 10 p.m. A request from the neighborhood according to the AFP.

Welcomed by blue-white-red flags everywhere in the streets and on buses, the Blues discovered the field of SC Paderborn, a Bundesliga2 club (German L2), on Wednesday. Around 15,000 seats, a recently sown lawn for real billiards and an autumnal climate: the story began in Paderborn. The rest belongs to the French team.

I subscribe to read more