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 \u2013 and lifestyle \u2013 that seems to suit the former Brest goalkeeper much more than the grass.<\/p>\n
“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\u2019s the fact that goalkeepers can score goals or provide assists \u2013 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2122 just around the corner, that the man in charge of Les Bleus and his assistant coach, ex-Angers and Lille stalwart Jean-Marie Aubry \u2013 a Beach Soccer World Cup winner in 2005 \u2013 were both goalkeepers in their playing days.<\/p>\n
Claude, how important would you say the position of goalkeeper is in beach soccer?
\nClaude 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\u2019s not only solid in goal but who\u2019s also really great with his feet \u2013 even more so than in futsal or football. If your goalkeeper doesn\u2019t have good feet in this sport, it can be tough. And on top of that, he also has to be charismatic.<\/p>\n
Have France managed to unearth any gems at that position?
\nRight now we have two main goalkeepers, German Salazar and Theo Guerin. They\u2019re improving, just like the team. It\u2019s important for them to have a good touch and try to find gaps in defences.<\/p>\n
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…
\nYes, we put in two strong performances in Italy. I was happy with how the players acquitted themselves. We\u2019ve got quite a young team and we\u2019re trying to get into our stride using a well-established game plan.<\/p>\n
How would you describe your game plan a few months before the start of the European qualifiers for Seychelles 2025?
\nWell, it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
What kind of ambitions should France be harbouring with regard to Seychelles 2025?
\nWe\u2019ll certainly go into the qualifiers with the goal of advancing. When you take part in this kind of competition, you don\u2019t 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\u2019re on the right track. The spine of the team is there. We\u2019ve held on to the same core group, because great teams don\u2019t change their players every month. I\u2019d say there are two or three big beach soccer nations in Europe, but behind them it\u2019s all fairly even. We haven\u2019t qualified for a World Cup in many years. Now we\u2019ve got a real chance.<\/p>\n
How do you account for such a long period in the wilderness?
\nThere 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\u2019s 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\u2019t afford to run three-month camps because if we did, our players would lose their jobs. I\u2019m not complaining, though; I\u2019ve adapted to these conditions and I\u2019m trying to put together the most competitive team I can.<\/p>\n
Who are the key players in your team right now?
\nThe players who form the spine of our side. There\u2019s our goalkeeper German Salazar, our defender and captain, Quentin Gosselin, and up front, we\u2019ve got Jeremy Bru. And then we\u2019ve got some young guys coming through, especially from Marseille. Little Aness Gharbi, who\u2019s 21, is really flying at the moment. They\u2019re all amateurs who\u2019ve not played at a higher level than the regional leagues. We don\u2019t have any players who were previously professionals, so we need to work on our formation and tactics a lot. Of course, it\u2019s easier to take on new information when you\u2019ve come through a youth academy, because you already know the basics.<\/p>\n
Were you ever tempted to being in some former professional footballers to lead the team and offer something extra?
\nIt 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
What did you think of UAE 2024 Dubai?
\nI 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\u2019ve 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\u2019d 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\u2019s what\u2019s making this sport stronger and helping it to constantly grow.<\/p>\n
What do you think about the fact that the next World Cup is going to be held in the Seychelles in 2025?
\nI\u2019m 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u2013 and lifestyle \u2013 that seems to suit the former Brest goalkeeper much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":980510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-980505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=980505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/980510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=980505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=980505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=980505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}