Euro 2022 is fast approaching! And before the start of the competition, Jessica Houara-d’Hommeaux agreed to give us a long interview. Already present for the 2019 World Cup, the former tricolor international (64 selections) will still be on Canal + for the football event of the summer. In this first part, the one who notably wore the jersey of PSG and OL returned to her career as a consultant.
What will be your role on Canal + throughout this Euro 2022?
I will have two roles. First of all, I will comment on all of Germany’s matches, with Anne-Laure Salvatico. The three matches of the first round and a potential quarter-final. And I will also be on set for all the matches of Les Bleues, but also a semi-final and the final. These are the two roles I have during the season. I do commentary and analysis on set. It will be the same this summer!
Since 2017, you have been working as a consultant. What do you particularly like about this new role?
What I like is talking about football. Quite simply ! My passion is football. I had the chance to make it my job as a player. And I continue to do so as a consultant. I have the chance to live from my passion. I can continue to talk football, to live football. I have no ambition at the moment to train. I don’t know if it will come in the future. To be able to continue to do this job, it allows me to keep a foothold in football.
I like the idea of all things technical analysis, videos, palettes… So this job allows me to continue doing that. With Canal +, I also have the advantage of doing the Canal Sports Club. A program that allows me to touch all sports. Its important to me. I can develop my skills in areas other than football.
I have to do research, watch what’s going on and now I can talk about Formula 1, Moto GP… So all that allows me to be in sport, quite simply. And that’s what I basically love about this job.
Was it a goal to specialize in other sports than football?
It was not a primary objective. Basically, I was thinking about football, because that’s the area I know best. In the end, I really got into the game with the Canal Sports Club. I really enjoyed that area. The fact of being able to transpose what I experienced, as a footballer in my sport, to other sports. Draw parallels between all sports.
We realize that we are almost all going through the same thing. All these things interest me enormously. I can also learn other sports. I like other sports, but being interested a little more specifically in these other sports is something that I like in the end. It also enriches me personally.
And that gives you a little more work…
A little. At the same time, it’s so rewarding that it’s worth the effort. It remains a passion! We will say that there is a worse job (laughs).
“Alas on women’s football, we don’t have a lot of data.”
– Jessica Houara-d’Hommeaux
You have already been able to compete in the Euros and the World Cup as a player. How do you approach such competition in this new role?
It’s not the same pressure at all to be honest (laughs). When you are a player, you have a pressure of the result. It is a very intensive preparation on the ground. It’s not the same thing. Of course, you have to prepare yourself as a consultant. There I will make the group of Germany, I will have to do research on the German players and all the teams they will meet. There is research work.
At the same time, we approach it differently, for me it’s a pleasure to be on a set. It was a pleasure to play football, of course. But it is something completely different. Because the result does not come from my performance. I have to be good at what I say to the comments and good at what I say on set, that I be sharp. But a team result is really very important, so they are two quite separate things. At the same time it is a preparation, but it is not a physical preparation. It is an intellectual preparation. You have to know your subject.
And precisely, how are you going to prepare this Euro 2022?
I will have to do a lot of research on the internet. And it’s difficult because unfortunately on women’s football, we don’t have a lot of data. I already see it when I do my research on a daily basis, for D1 matches, with players who have just arrived. I have a lot of difficulty finding things on these players.
It’s a big job. It will especially be necessary to know the clubs where they played, the number of selections they have etc… Afterwards, the analysis of the matches, it is difficult, because it is almost impossible to find the images. The advantage is that I will follow Germany, as the competition progresses, I will get used to seeing them play and that is a very big advantage.
The other teams will be done over the course of the competition. I will try to look at the results, to be interested in the summary of the match etc… But it is difficult to look at everything. Above all, it will be a lot of Internet research to try to find as much information as possible on each player and on each nation. There is going to be a lot of research and a lot of time spent on the computer.
It is certain that over the course of the competition, it will be more and more simple…
Yes of course. Already, we will have more and more time between matches. At the beginning, it is very very busy. It’s very dense in terms of planning. Especially since I’m going to go back and forth between England and France. Like every big competition, as it goes on, it spreads out a little, we have a little more time and then we are used to seeing the teams play and suddenly we know the dynamic in which they are.
There, we can say to ourselves, Germany plays like that and in the end, they will play completely differently at the Euro. The players will be in a different dynamic. There are players who will prove themselves at this Euro and who will chain matches, whereas before they did not play. A competition like that is so special.
Do you prefer to train for these big competitions? Or rather during championship weekends?
There is a lot of adrenaline. As a player, I prefer big competitions. As a consultant, I still prefer the whole season. Because there, we don’t even have time to see all the matches, it’s impossible. We are on a lot of trips, in a very short time. We are necessarily in the competition, but as I will go back and forth between England and France, I will be less in it.
During the season, it is much easier to be impregnated. There, I will be in it yes, but for matches and not for all matches. It’s a little more difficult, it’s a little more intense. I prefer the season as a consultant, on the other hand I totally prefer big competitions like that when I was a player. We play every three days, we want to play when we are players. We have our dose of football to the maximum.
“The advantage is that you can know how the players feel.”
– The Canal + consultant
You were already present for the 2019 World Cup, what will change for your second major competition in the media world?
The first years as a consultant, I had much more pressure, for the matches. Now, commenting on a match, I know what it is, I’m used to it. At the World Cup, in addition, I had a role on the edge of the field, it was different. I used to do it a little bit in D1, but it’s still a real job as a journalist. As a result, I had a little more pressure, because you have to know how to chain questions etc…
It’s a profession that I don’t know. It was not easy. Afterwards, these are players I knew, so it was also perhaps a little easier for me. But I had perhaps a little more pressure in that role, on the field of the French team, because it was not a job that I completely mastered. There as a consultant, commenting on a match, analyzing a Les Bleues match, that’s something I’m used to doing. And so suddenly, I will have much less pressure, necessarily, than I had for the World Cup.
Do you prefer to analyze or comment on matches?
I like both. Very clearly, I need both. And I like both because I like being close to the pitch and commentating, talking during the game. I also like to have this hindsight on the matches and just to have this little analysis of a set. I like both and find that the two complement each other well. And I can’t choose between the two, because I need both to be completely satisfied in my work.
How can your international past be a huge asset in analyzing the matches of this Euro?
The advantage is that we can know how the players feel. It is important in these kinds of competitions. Mentally how they feel. Group life… We’ve been through all that! So we know how group life goes for a month. Even if each group is different, of course. We know what the players feel after a match, before a match… We know how preparation goes from the inside, on a big competition.
I think that’s what is expected of a consultant as well. Beyond the technical, tactical analysis, of the game. We also expect this past of players. This experience that we have as players in these major competitions. Even if each player is different, we generally know how the player can feel. The small details of the preparations. The small details of group life.
That’s what people want to know. That they can’t know. They can’t go inside. They can’t be in the minds of the players. It is this more that we bring. Of course there is this technical and tactical analysis, although I think there are journalists, even if they have not been football players, they are totally capable of doing it. You don’t need to be a high-level athlete sometimes to do certain technical and tactical analyses.
It is true that we immediately feel the contribution of athletes in the world of the media…
Anyway, in this profession, one does not go without the other. The consultant needs the journalist for all the skills he has. And I think that the journalist needs the consultant, for all these little analyzes and these details.