It's not every day your employer wants to send you overseas to a country where you a) speak the language, b) have family there, and c) actually think it's a great initiative. But that's what happened when the Colorado Yeti front office called Raphael Delacour to ask him to attend a workshop in France. See, Delacour is from a francophone family, and actually has cousins in the country still -- while the connection is through his paternal grandfather, it's a bit of a distant connection really; the Picard family and Delacour family weren't particularly close until fairly recently -- as well as his older sister Sophia, currently living in Lyon, where she plays for Olympique Lyonnais.
"Yeah I was pretty stoked to get over there," Raphael said. "I don't get to see Soph much these days, and she'd be around because the season wasn't over for her yet. Also it's a great opportunity to expand the profile of the game in a country that you wouldn't normally associate with football. Not this kind anyway."
While in France, Raphael was joined by family friend Lennox Garnett, who currently operates an academy of sorts for young players in Britain. "Lennox agreed to come over and contribute, and front office didn't mind doing a collaborative thing with Lennie's training school, so we got together and put on a really good workshop for the kids. We had a few duels, you know, receiver against d-back. It was nice."
France is more of a rugby and soccer nation when it comes to team ball sports, but Raphael seems confident that in showing the youth something new, there's a possibility for the ISFL to expand there in future, insisting that "as long as we keep sending people over to do these workshops, and help them to develop their own coaching infrastructure and so on, I think there's a lot of talent over there to be tapped into."
(for affiliate purposes, I am also academydropout)
"Yeah I was pretty stoked to get over there," Raphael said. "I don't get to see Soph much these days, and she'd be around because the season wasn't over for her yet. Also it's a great opportunity to expand the profile of the game in a country that you wouldn't normally associate with football. Not this kind anyway."
While in France, Raphael was joined by family friend Lennox Garnett, who currently operates an academy of sorts for young players in Britain. "Lennox agreed to come over and contribute, and front office didn't mind doing a collaborative thing with Lennie's training school, so we got together and put on a really good workshop for the kids. We had a few duels, you know, receiver against d-back. It was nice."
France is more of a rugby and soccer nation when it comes to team ball sports, but Raphael seems confident that in showing the youth something new, there's a possibility for the ISFL to expand there in future, insisting that "as long as we keep sending people over to do these workshops, and help them to develop their own coaching infrastructure and so on, I think there's a lot of talent over there to be tapped into."
(for affiliate purposes, I am also academydropout)
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