{"id":3083,"date":"2026-04-21T13:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/updatelive.online\/?p=3083"},"modified":"2026-04-21T13:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:44:13","slug":"toulouse-he-comes-from-the-people-and-he-is-there-for-the-people-karim-mokeddem-tells-his-pierre-sage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/?p=3083","title":{"rendered":"Toulouse: \u201cHe comes from the people, and he is there for the people\u201d\u2026 Karim Mokeddem tells his Pierre Sage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div layout=\"desktop\">\n<p>Everyone was unanimous at the start of the season. Pierre Sage and RC Lens were made to work together. But, a few weeks before the end of the championship, no one imagined the Sang et Or so well placed in L1 and two games from a title at the Stade de France. The former Lyon technician has made his team a war machine, which has been grinding a little in recent weeks, thanks to a fairly innovative vision of football, a modern playing philosophy based on numerous research and different experiences on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p>Pierre Sage, it is his companions of twenty years in the twists and turns of amateur football who speak about it best. Take Karim Mokeddem, for example. Currently without a club since his departure from Cr\u00e9teil last September, the original Lyonnais met Pierre Sage when he was preparing for a coaching diploma before finding him at AS Minguettes then coaching together at Lyon La Duch\u00e8re, in 2018-2019, where Sage was Mokeddem&#8217;s assistant. The perfect person to discuss the coach of the year.<\/p>\n<h2>We talk a lot about Pierre Sage as a research coach. Is this a good definition?<\/h2>\n<p>Beyond reading and researching, he is actually someone who is able to apply what he learns. Because there are a lot of coach-researchers who give lessons, but few are capable of making the transfer between learning and the field: how do you manage to transmit it to your players on the field through training sessions. Having a good football philosophy is open to everyone, but implementing it on the pitch in training and spreading it to your players on a daily basis is a little more complicated. And, Pierre, on this, he is really strong.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"c-media\">\n<p><iframe title=\"Les footballeurs qui ont perc\u00e9 sur le tard\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" vspace=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"true\" mozallowfullscreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.ultimedia.com\/deliver\/generic\/iframe\/mdtk\/01357940\/zone\/1\/src\/3lm3mqk\/showtitle\/1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2>How does he nourish his playing philosophy?<\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s great to read books and articles. And then try to copy and paste what we read or what we think we understand. Pierre is not going to do things on the surface. And that\u2019s what sets him apart from a lot of coaches. Because a lot of coaches will read two, three articles. They will go on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. They will see exercises, they will copy and paste. That&#8217;s not Pierre. Pierre, I\u2019ve known him for twenty years. Twenty years ago, he was already like that in fact, it&#8217;s in his DNA. When he set up the entire training system in Bourg-en-Bresse (from 2007 to 2012), it was all written, everything cut out. He had a ready-made plan, that was clear.<\/p>\n<p>When something happens, he wants to go and take the knowledge where it is. For example, when he signed for Red Star in 2022, there was a lot of talk about tactical periodization. He will then complete the training and then apply it. Tactical periodization means working on everything at the same time. You can&#8217;t go out to training and only work on defense or attack. Everything is mixed up. Even a set piece cannot be taken out of play. We always work on everything as a whole and Pierre understands that well. Everything is worked on and everything is transmitted from a game.<\/p>\n<h2>We saw it on several sequences this season with Lens, Pierre Sage is one of the rare coaches to explain his methods\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>I think he is one of the youngest trainers who has taken part in federal training for the State Certificate. In fact, Pierre has always had two things in him: the research side and the sharing side. Many people, when they do work, keep it a bit secret. But we are in a profession, in a coaching position where we are obliged to share. Pierre, he has this thing of constantly sharing, he was able to take time with educators. When he goes to amateur clubs, he can find things that will help him at the high level. Especially for him, what is important is to know where you come from and in amateur clubs, we have a lot of that. Pierre, he has a background that reminds him of that. He comes from the people and he is there for the people.<\/p>\n<h2>Is his method applicable to bigger clubs or does he, with Lens, have the ideal club for that?<\/h2>\n<p>But, before Lens, Pierre had already done it in Lyon. There&#8217;s not a huge difference between the results when he arrives and when he leaves. Is Pierre capable of doing what he does in Lens even higher? The answer is in the question. He did it in Lyon with an atypical president. Pierre can work at any club in the world today. His next experience will be in a good club abroad. Pierre, he is doing something extraordinary. We will let him go on the Champions League stage.<\/p>\n<h2>Is he the bridgehead of the new generation of French coaches, like R\u00e9gis Le Bris or Franck Haise?<\/h2>\n<p>If I compare with Haise or Le Bris, Pierre is still at the beginning. They have many more years of experience. R\u00e9gis has his experience in Lorient. He has a lot of experience in a training center and he is now in England. I don&#8217;t want to compare it to Franck anymore. Beyond bringing to football, what it brings to the amateur world, this window open to the professional world is already enormous. Afterwards, he is not a revolutionary. Pierre said a little sentence in a documentary made about Reynald Denoueix which characterizes him well: \u201cIf I manage to bring, to leave a legacy a little bit of what Denoueix did, in his image, that will already be fantastic for me. \u00bb<\/p>\n<h2>How does he manage to convince his players?<\/h2>\n<p>Already, one important thing: Malang Sarr is a very good defender; Mathieu Udol, a beast of a piston; Adrien Thomasson, a worker; Florian Thauvin, very good player. Where Pierre was good, and where the method is good, is that he manages to build a mental landscape for the well-being of the player. The player&#8217;s qualities must be at the service of the development of the collective, without restricting the player. Sometimes, by wanting to frame things too much in France, we restrict and take away the player&#8217;s freedom. When I went to see Pierre, in training, there was a training structure, a playing structure, and on the other hand, it is the player&#8217;s freedom of expression which is respected. And sometimes, in fact, through the way we coach, we can restrict the player&#8217;s freedom of expression. Today, Pierre has set up a perfect setting in Lens for them to express themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone was unanimous at the start of the season. Pierre Sage and RC Lens were made to work together. But, a few weeks before the end of the championship, no one imagined the Sang et Or so well placed in L1 and two games from a title at the Stade de France. The former Lyon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}