EXCLUSIVE | Eric Djemba-Djemba: ‘Marc-Vivien Foé was someone who had extraordinary human values.’ | OneFootball

Get French Football News sat down with former FC Nantes, Manchester United and Cameroon midfielder Eric Djemba-Djemba for a fascinating chat on his experiences as a footballer and since retirement.

In this third and final part, Eric talks about his youth academy in Cameroon, the importance of human values, and a man who embodied those values: the late Marc-Vivien Foé.

You talked about Nantes’ youth system which has had great success over the years, going back to the likes of Didier Deschamps and Marcel Desailly coming through. I know that you now have your own youth academy in Cameroon. Are there any lessons that you have transferred across from Nantes?

Yes, I opened my academy five years ago. And the first thing I brought over from Nantes was to check, when the children leave home in the morning to come to train, whether they have had made their bed! Because I remember when I was at La Jonelière [Nantes’ youth development centre], every morning before going to training or to school we had to make our beds. Because it is part of learning to have discipline. And what I’ve taken with me is that your success in the development centre depended on your results in school. That means that if you did well at school and you listened to the teachers, you were diligent, you worked hard, that’s how you would come to be in your real life. Because if you’re diligent at school, you’re going to be diligent in life. So I took that with me – for young people today to respect others, to respect their teammate. Because when there’s respect between you and your teammate on the pitch, you will work twice as hard for your teammate and together you will achieve good things. And it starts with that discipline.

There are things that I haven’t been able to accomplish myself in my career and I want to see someone from my academy accomplish what I was not able to do by passing on this experience.

So it’s not just a question of raising good footballers but good men?

Exactly. And they know – every time I have gone back to Cameroon, I have always talked to them and told them: in a youth development centre you have100 footballers but, of those 100, maybe only 15 will turn professional. And if you don’t manage to turn professional, at the very least you will do another job but do it with good values. That’s why human values, discipline, respect, obedience is very, very important to me for young footballers because it can open a lot of doors for you. When you’re respectful, when you’re humble, a coach might give you your chance. But if you are not humble, you are lazy, every time you are grumpy, you complain, you may not get given that chance. So that’s kind of my philosophy.

You spoke about human values and respect – and earlier you also mentioned the final of the 2003 Confederations Cup. It was during the semi-final that your teammate Marc-Vivien Foé collapsed and died. From everything I’ve read, he was really someone who transmitted all these values, this respect?

Yes, precisely, I can tell you today, Marc-Vivien Foé was the captain who did not wear an armband. That basically sums up the man. What I mean by that is that Rigobert Song was captain with the armband. But Marc-Vivien Foé’s voice was listened to. When he said something, it was carefully thought out. He didn’t just say anything, anyhow. He could stay in a room with you for an hour and you don’t hear his voice. You’d hear other voices crying out left and right – Geremi, or Samuel Eto’o, or Pierre Womé, but not the voice of Foé. But when he said something, everyone followed. He was someone who had extraordinary human values, a very good and endearing person.

His death touched all of us – all of Cameroon, all of Africa and even in Europe, too, people were affected. I saw Thierry Henry shed tears during the game. It was really a huge loss for a lot of people. To have known him, spend time with him, play alongside him, to transmit his human values – it goes beyond football, some things are more important.

Thank you for mentioning Marc-Vivien Foé because we cannot talk about Cameroon without talking about it because it is someone who fought and fell for his country and talking about him fills me with a lot of pride because I knew him and I shared the pitch with him and it’s always a pleasure for me to talk about him so that his memory can remain alive.

Eric Djemba-Djemba was speaking exclusively to Get French Football News courtesy of World Cup Betting

GFFN | Jeremy Smith