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Raised eyebrows in France as gaffer gets scientific

As part of his ongoing campaign to bring some harmony back to the mental French international squad, cerebral manager Laurent Blanc has brought in a professional to ‘conduct a psychological test’ on the squad, which he hopes will help him find a prime candidate for the captain’s armband.

The profiler was invited to the French training base at Clairefontaine last week and provided players with a multiple choice quiz of around 50 questions, revealed by defender Adil Rami to be about “our character, our behavior and decisions we have made in our lives.”

Blanc said:

As soon as you talk about psychology or psychiatry, it becomes a dangerous thing. ‘Oh, I don’t need that, I know myself well’ But some people still don’t know who they are at 80 years old, and never know who they are throughout their lives. So if we can help people know themselves better, then there’s no danger. Don’t think we went into a dark room with someone and lay down on a yellow couch. It’s just someone who came here with some methods of his own. … The players really got involved, without having any second thoughts. I even did the same work on myself 15 days ago.

The manager’s head check seems to have started paying off already. Les Bluesovercame Romania 2-0 on Saturday with both goals scored in the last ten minutes – despite being booed off at half time.

[ESPN via Four Four Two]

Tagged With : France • Laurent Blanc

