Coach of the French national beach soccer team since 2020, as well as a FIFA instructor, and with previous stints in Madagascar, Senegal and Reunion, 58-year-old Claude Barrabe has built up a vast amount of experience on the sand. It’s a life – and lifestyle – that seems to suit the former Brest goalkeeper much more than the grass.
“The sand, the beach, playing with your bare feet without shin-pads, being able to dive around without hurting yourself,” he told FIFA. “And most importantly, it’s the fact that goalkeepers can score goals or provide assists – something I could never do in 11-a-side football. Pushing up with the ball and shooting, becoming a goalscoring goalie, that really appealed to me.”
Given the increasing importance of custodians in beach soccer, it will be reassuring to France fans, with the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Seychelles 2025™ just around the corner, that the man in charge of Les Bleus and his assistant coach, ex-Angers and Lille stalwart Jean-Marie Aubry – a Beach Soccer World Cup winner in 2005 – were both goalkeepers in their playing days.
Claude, how important would you say the position of goalkeeper is in beach soccer?
Claude Barrabe: Without wanting to disparage other positions, the goalkeeper is the most important role in beach soccer. If you want to play against teams using depth and width, you have to have a good goalkeeper, one who’s not only solid in goal but who’s also really great with his feet – even more so than in futsal or football. If your goalkeeper doesn’t have good feet in this sport, it can be tough. And on top of that, he also has to be charismatic.
Have France managed to unearth any gems at that position?
Right now we have two main goalkeepers, German Salazar and Theo Guerin. They’re improving, just like the team. It’s important for them to have a good touch and try to find gaps in defences.
Talking of team progress, you put up a good fight against UAE 2024 Dubai runners-up Italy in early May, losing 5-3 and 5-2 in Tirrenia…
Yes, we put in two strong performances in Italy. I was happy with how the players acquitted themselves. We’ve got quite a young team and we’re trying to get into our stride using a well-established game plan.
How would you describe your game plan a few months before the start of the European qualifiers for Seychelles 2025?
Well, it’s not like there are thousands of options in beach soccer (laughs). Sure, we can play in different formations, but we also focus on player development and a whole range of things that make the players feel comfortable within the France set-up. These days, beach soccer has become really physical. There are a couple of popular formations: the 1-2-2, where the goalkeeper comes out of his box and tries to probe for a way through, which is used by Brazil, or the 1-3-1 used by Italy, where the defenders drop back and try to maintain possession before launching direct attacks. We try to play the 1-2-2, because our goalkeepers are good with their feet.
What kind of ambitions should France be harbouring with regard to Seychelles 2025?
We’ll certainly go into the qualifiers with the goal of advancing. When you take part in this kind of competition, you don’t go to make up the numbers. In the play-offs for Dubai 2024, we only narrowly lost to Belarus in Baku, even though on paper they were quite a bit better than us. We’re on the right track. The spine of the team is there. We’ve held on to the same core group, because great teams don’t change their players every month. I’d say there are two or three big beach soccer nations in Europe, but behind them it’s all fairly even. We haven’t qualified for a World Cup in many years. Now we’ve got a real chance.
How do you account for such a long period in the wilderness?
There were originally quite a few former pros in the side. Their time ended and we started from scratch with young players. We had to rebuild and that’s never easy. Our players are amateurs with real jobs, who sometimes find it tricky to be available all the time, unlike some nations who run training camps for three or four months and can pay their players. There are different tiers in beach soccer. We can’t afford to run three-month camps because if we did, our players would lose their jobs. I’m not complaining, though; I’ve adapted to these conditions and I’m trying to put together the most competitive team I can.
Who are the key players in your team right now?
The players who form the spine of our side. There’s our goalkeeper German Salazar, our defender and captain, Quentin Gosselin, and up front, we’ve got Jeremy Bru. And then we’ve got some young guys coming through, especially from Marseille. Little Aness Gharbi, who’s 21, is really flying at the moment. They’re all amateurs who’ve not played at a higher level than the regional leagues. We don’t have any players who were previously professionals, so we need to work on our formation and tactics a lot. Of course, it’s easier to take on new information when you’ve come through a youth academy, because you already know the basics.
Were you ever tempted to being in some former professional footballers to lead the team and offer something extra?
It depends if they fit the bill. At one point I made an approach to Guillaume Hoarau, because I felt he had the required attributes, but he didn’t respond favourably. I like an imposing forward who can play in the pivot role, and is capable of holding on to the ball. Players in the mould of Michael Pagis and Eric Cantona are important.
What did you think of UAE 2024 Dubai?
I was in Dubai in my role of FIFA instructor, and I was also helping the Senegal team to prepare for the tournament. It seemed as if Brazil could win just through technique alone. These days, teams are physically prepared. All of the big teams use GPS trackers, just like footballers. They’ve got a fitness trainer, video analysts and a large backroom staff. And beach soccer players start a lot younger than they did before. Back in the day, you’d take a former footballer and send him out on to the sand, whereas now, in some countries, work starts at U-17, U-19 and U-20 level, and that’s what’s making this sport stronger and helping it to constantly grow.
What do you think about the fact that the next World Cup is going to be held in the Seychelles in 2025?
I’m from Reunion, so I live one-and-a-half hours from the Seychelles, a country that I know quite well. I was in charge of Madagascar when the Beach Soccer Cup of Nations was held there in 2015, and we ended up becoming champions of Africa, beating Senegal on penalties in the final. And I’ve often gone to the Seychelles with the Reunion team during the Indian Ocean Island Games. The country is beautiful, of course, but what pleases me the most is the news that they plan to build a 3,000-seater arena. You saw the results recently in Dubai. Bringing the whole world to the Indian Ocean is a wonderful thing. Hopefully France will be one of the four European teams that get to take part.
source
کلاس یوس