MHSC-OM: “We need to go even faster in training” says Montpellier reserve coach Frédéric Garny

MHSC reserve coach Frédéric Garny hopes for a season as successful as the previous one. Midi Libre – Valentin Cosson

MHSC reserve coach Frédéric Garny reveals the objectives of this new 2024/2025 season, on the occasion of the first match against Olympique de Marseille, this Saturday (6 p.m.).

Last season, the objective was largely achieved with an easy survival and a second place in the standings, and the training was also good. The objective, this season, will be to have the same season?

Yes, even if it will be much more complicated with the TV rights. That is to say that if our first team suffers, inevitably the training suffers too. We will be even younger, even more than in other years. The first mission we will have is to get points, to work in serenity. But the main objective remains to make the players evolve individually, so that they progress quickly.

The salvation of a club like MHSC today comes from training…

It only comes from training. The problem we have today is that we have to go a little faster than usual, that is to say that there are players who have not yet validated a full season in National 3 and find themselves with the professional group. It's an impact for them because the training is not over.

How do you judge the group you have at your disposal ?

Most of the 2005s are training with the professionals (Chenahi, Dzodic, Mbappé, Maamma, Ndiaye). All these boys should be in reserve. Today, in relation to the problem of TV rights, they find themselves with professionals on the restart. We tried to readjust a little the shortcomings of the 2006 generation with outsiders who must now take the pace of a training center, like Montpellier.

The objective of maintaining will be all the more complicated with an even more tough group ?

With the new reforms, that's one less N2 group. If we calculate, that's about twenty players on the floor per club. And these players are in N3 since the squads have already been made in National 2.

This weekend, you are playing another reserve team, OM. Is it always a different match between two reserve teams??

The problem is that we are talking about a reserve team that is anything but a reserve team, it is a team that plays at a very old age compared to what we can do. You still have players like Sparagna, Abdallah, guys over 30. To give an example, they have seven players born in 2004, knowing that we, the 2004s, don't have any anymore because they are professional contracts and we have a training objective.

It's always nice to play against a training center when it's a training center that does training today. I'm not close enough to the Marseille reserve to know what their objective is to play boys that old.

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