FC Girondins de Bordeaux Tryouts & Club Guide: History, Stadium, Players, and More!

Football Club des Girondins de Bordeaux, commonly referred to as Girondins de Bordeaux or simply Bordeaux, is a French professional football club based in the city of Bordeaux in Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The club competes in Ligue 1, the top flight of French football.

Bordeaux Youth Development System

Bordeaux Academy

The FC Girondins de Bordeaux academy has been training young boys for more than 20 years with a dual objective. Building responsible and educated citizens while bringing players to the highest level. We invite you to discover the philosophy of the center, the facilities, the recruitment method as well as a focus on a few players who have passed through the training center.

The philosophy of the training center

For more than 20 years and the creation of the Academy, FC Girondins de Bordeaux has made training one of its main objectives. The club has long understood that a strong club is based on a real training policy, in order to transmit to young players the values of a great football club but also to ensure its sustainability.

This policy has borne fruit for several years with the emergence of talented and internationally renowned players. Almost every year, young players trained in Haillan become professional footballers, within the club or elsewhere. Academy teams are regularly at the top of their league tables and win prestigious titles, such as the Gambardella Cup in 2013.

In 1999, the arrival of the audiovisual group M6 as the main shareholder of FC Girondins de Bordeaux confirmed the club’s desire to give priority to training. This approach has been pursued by La Dynamie (King Street), the Club’s new shareholder since 2018. The Training Center is in constant development with the creation of new sports and reception structures and management teams reinforced by high-level educators.

Joining the FC Girondins de Bordeaux Academy means having the assurance of receiving complete training, both in sport and in education, in order to join the professional team.

To achieve this objective, the Academy provides its residents with all the tools essential to both successes in the world of work and in professional football.

Bordeaux School and sports training

As soon as they arrive at the club, young players receive both academic and sports training. Their development necessarily requires success in these two areas. For this reason, FC Girondins de Bordeaux is committed to offering its young players a balance between their passion and their school obligations so that the latter is never in difficulty in relation to their future professional life.

Bordeaux School Training

Education has a primordial place in the development of each player. The young people of the Academy have the obligation to follow a normal education. With the aim of academic excellence, the Club has created its Private Technical School . This school works with the Péret Institute for general baccalaureates and the Bernom Institute for BTS, BEP, and professional baccalauréats.

The youngest (Pre-training) take courses at the Emile Zola college, located in the town of Haillan.

Adapted schedules

The young people of the Academy have flexible hours allowing them to pursue their sporting life as well as their school life. These flexible hours are the subject of agreements signed with schools: lessons end at 3:00 p.m. every day, to make way for sports training.

In the evening, the residents follow supervised studies with teachers who come to Le Haillan from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Young people follow an education identical to a normal system, which provides them with essential security for the future.

Bordeaux Sports Training

The FC Girondins de Bordeaux Academy accommodates around sixty young people aged 13 to 20. The workforce is divided into three groups. From 13 to 15 years old, young people are in a pre-training period, before moving on to the training cycle between 15 years old and 18 years old. Then, the bridge between the training and the professional team is the post-training period that the young people carry out within the team engaged in the National Championship. All sports training has one major objective: the professional team and its requirements.

Serious medical follow-up

The players play high-level football and the club is keen to follow them as well as possible in order to prevent injuries and to put the players in the best physical condition. To do this, a medical team is seconded to the training center to work with the teams of young people. Thanks to a constant presence and numerous interactions with educators and players, the medical staff can personalize their approach on a case-by-case basis.

A complete staff at the service of the players

The Centre’s medical team is made up of two sports doctors, physiotherapists, and physical trainers responsible for prevention and rehabilitation. Available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, the Academy’s doctors are present at all training sessions and during matches. They meet with the coaches and players on a daily basis in order to detect any anomalies and provide the advice necessary for practicing a high-level sport.

Regular reviews

Each year at the start of the season, the medical team carries out a complete physical examination of the players: somatic, clinical, cardiovascular, digestive, neurological, musculoskeletal system, etc. Finally, the doctor and the sports team carry out a biometric, physical and physiological evaluation of each player.

The training center facilities

The Bordeaux Academy aims to provide the best possible conditions for success to its young residents. To accommodate more than 50 teenagers, FC Girondins de Bordeaux wanted to build a large space where everyone can live in a group while having an acceptable individual living space.

The club’s Training Center is located in the heart of the exceptional site of the Plaine des Sports du Haillan , headquarters of FC Girondins de Bordeaux. The residents are thus in permanent contact with the professional team.

Area : 11 hectares

> 10 football fields,
> 1 synthetic football field,
> 1 wooded 3-kilometer jogging course,
> 2 weight rooms,
> 1 swimming pool for recovery and relaxation.

> 60 beds
> 3 classrooms
> 1 doctor’s office
> 1 treatment
room
> 1 relaxation room 
> 1 “meeting” point for families
> 1 kitchen
> 1 dining room

Bordeaux Academy Recruitment | Trials/Tryouts

Most of the recruitment takes place among players aged 13-14: between 15 and 20 places to be filled each season. For the upper age categories, there is a maximum of ten places each season because the players who are at the Academy often stay there until the age of 18. Regarding players over 18 who are not yet professional (reserve team), recruitment is very limited and never takes place on the application, only on the recommendation. The players on the reserve team are often those who were at the Academy. There is very little external recruitment.

How is recruitment carried out?

The Club’s youth recruitment manager has a team of observers throughout France (Ligue d de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Ligue du Center Ouest, Ligue Méditerranée, Ligue de Paris Ile de France) and in certain countries. foreigners. These observers move around, and roam the football fields in search of young talents.

The players thus identified are then invited to participate in the detections that we organize throughout the season during the school holidays. If the detections are conclusive, the Club proposes to the selected player to join the Pre-training or the Academy according to his age.

To join the Club or participate in our detections, you must have been spotted. There are no registration forms to complete. You cannot register for detection days either.

If you meet the admission requirements, you can send a cover letter, but the best way to get spotted is to play the best you can at your club. The recruiting manager has a large network of informants (coaches, educators, etc.). If a player is likely to join the training center, he will be informed.

Recruitment takes place from September to April. There is a summer break from May to August.

Bordeaux Academy Structure

FC Girondins de Bordeaux currently has:

• an ACADEMY that welcomes players between 15 and 18 years old (maximum 48 interns per season).
• a TRAINING CENTER for players aged 13 and 14 (a maximum of 20 players per season).

The players who stay there are accommodated and taken care of on an academic and sporting level.

Conditions for recruitment

• You must be between 13 and 18 years old at the time of recruitment (season preceding arrival at the Club).
• Be French or European. In accordance with FIFA regulations (article 19), a player from outside the European community under the age of 18 cannot sign a contract or have an amateur license within a French professional football club.

To be able to join the Training Center at the age of 15, you must have completed your 1st school cycle .

Source: https://www.girondins.com/fr/pages/29665/lacademie

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Bordeaux History

Bordeaux is widely regarded as one of the most successful football clubs in France. The club was established on October 1, 1881, as a multi-sports club. The most recent of the club’s six Division 1/Ligue 1 championships was won in 2009. Additionally, Bordeaux has been victorious in the Coupe de France on four separate occasions, the Coupe de la Ligue on three separate occasions, and the Trophée des champions on three separate occasions.

Additionally, Bordeaux competed in the Uefa Cup final in the year 1996. The Stade Chaban-Delmas served as the club’s home stadium in the year leading up to the club’s establishment; however, the Matmut Atlantique has served as Bordeaux’s primary stadium ever since 2015.

Stadium

In Bordeaux, France, there is a football stadium that is currently also known as the Matmut Atlantique for sponsorship reasons. This stadium’s official name is the Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux. The stadium has seating for 42,115 spectators and is the home of the Ligue 1 club FC Girondins de Bordeaux.

Crest

The club’s first logo was designed in 1936 and consisted of a white circular badge with a gold and black outline. In the center of the badge was a geometric insignia, and on the outside was a delicate wordmark. The “V” in capital letters was repeated over and over again in the form of a chevron that was white in color.

The year “1881” is written in letters that is put above the chevron on the existing badge. It is laid out over two levels, and the words are each a unique size, thickness, and color within their own levels.

The area that says “Bordeaux” in white is now on the very top, and the letters are larger and done in a thin sans-serif font. The “Girondins” in dark gold have a more compact size, but their lines are more pronounced. The newly designed wordmark features a thin gold outline that acts as the ideal counterpoint to the overall design of the shield.

Ownership

In 2018, the French media firm M6, which had owned Bordeaux since 1999, sold the club to the American investment fund General American Capital Partners (GACP) for the price of 100 million euros ($114 million). This marked the completion of GACP’s ownership of the Ligue 1 team Bordeaux. The majority of FC Bordeaux’s shares are held by a company called “La Dynamie,” which is a subsidiary of General American Capital Partners (GACP).