Football: For FC Vauvert, it’s the return to the big world

Toufik El Akkari et ses coéquipiers sont prêts à en découdre en Régional 1. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

Vingt et un ans après son dernier passage, le FCV s’invite à nouveau au plus haut niveau régional. Entre excitation de toute une ville et sérénité d’un groupe ayant envie d’exister en R1.

These days, in Vauvert, green and white often comes up in discussions in town. Twenty-one years of waiting since 2003 and the last season of the FCV pennant team in DH (the former R1) before this return to favor at the highest level of Occitanie football, last spring .

Within an R1 championship that is more competitive than ever, where the promoted Gard will play ''maintenance, in a great group and with great teams&# 39;', logically, coach Nabil Hammouch advances.
The staff, like the entire workforce, are aware of this popular fervor. ''We are rather calm, quiet, recalls the technician. Beyond the club and the players, it rekindles the flame within the city and, every time we meet people, they only tell us about it. You feel that people are waiting for this, in R1.''

Abdellah Lazaar, new president

This promises beautiful Sundays at the Radelyevitch stadium: ''We're going to sell our skin dearly. Green and white will be the order of the day'', promises Hammouch. Due to lack of resources, – ''We have one of the smallest budgets in the group, if not the smallest'', notes the coach – to try to exist in this big world, Vauvert has recruited ''cleverly, with players with the right mentality and the right state of mind''.

The club of the new president Abdellah Lazaar, who succeeded Kamel El Mahrouk, the latter remaining a player, has notably attracted the experienced goalkeeper Steven Bouchité, 32 years old (ex-Fabrègues).
In defense, Rémi Goudal, central seen at Aigues-Mortes in the past, has also joined the ranks of the promoted team.

Hammouch, on recruitment: ''We did local, that has always been our trademark''

''We did local, that has always been our trademark'', adds Hammouch.
The attackers Abdel Slimane, from Uchaud, and Magomed Issard, from Nîmes (R1), arrive as neighbors. Midfielder Sébastien Mejan from not much further away, from Uzès.
Unlike Yanis Bidjou, who arrives from Chantilly (Oise, N3): ''In fact, Yanis is a double whammy. Nîmes recruited players from Puy-en-Velay and one of them (Akkal) is his friend. They came together, Yanis settled in the area and was looking for a nice R1 club. He came to us. He's a good little player.''
FCV wants to do something good. Will he have the means ? First elements of response in Fabrègues in opening on September 7, then against Narbonne at home. In town, we already only talk about that…

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