Method Lemoine: The revolution of the technician who transformed the Condors into World Cup players

Pablo Lemoine is a reference in South American rugby. At 41, he is not only the coach who led the Condors to their first World Cup, but he was also the architect of the project that brought Uruguay back to a world championship after 12 years. of drought. These two processes, along with the brief but successful stint with the German national team, make it impossible for his figure not to improve in the milestone reached by the national team a week ago. A method that is clear and demonstrates the charrúa way of being.

“We start honestly. We told them “it’s going to be very hard, super sacrificed, they’re going to have to leave a lot of things out, they’re going to lose hours of work, money and maybe the price sucks”. This is the guideline that we proposed and that the boys accepted. In short, it is the success of the staff-player relationship. We didn’t lie to them, we told them how things were going and they agreed. It is in these challenges that the team was built, that these steps were climbed “comments the coach of Charrúa, in what is a detailed explanation of what he finally launches:”The success of the program has been the honesty ”.

A phrase that is partly explained by the vast experience that the technician has. With nearly a decade at the head of selected adults, he already knows successes and failures, essential tools for his proposal. The three years spent in Uruguay, as well as the season in which he was in charge of Germany, just before his arrival in the country, are a great support in his daily life with the players. “In the communication part, clearly today I have the possibility of communicating the experience. My greatest ability today is to be able to transmit things that work and I try not to communicate failed experiences. “, he explains calmly in a hotel in the eastern sector of the capital.

This is where it becomes impossible not to reflect on this trilogy of projects. Challenges with very clear similarities, the main one being that they were teams that had practically nothing. For this reason, when he arrived in Santiago, in August 2018, the diagnosis was clear and very similar to what had happened to him. “The realities of Uruguay, Chile and Germany are the same. Not because countries want to do the same, but because the problems are the same: lack of players, local competitions that are not good, resistance to high performance and lack of means. Those four were the main ones and then you can add more like lack of training facilities, lack of specific things, and there a problem ball forms where you have to grab them one by one and solve them. he reflects.

It was not an easy road. Since his arrival, together with the Federation, they had to implement a revolutionary plan, where many elements established for years had to be dismantled. Changes of this magnitude inevitably lead to unease in certain groups, something Lemoine had to live with and which ultimately, for him, ended up being the most complicated element of his management. “What cost the most was the lack of acceptance. Getting people out of the status quo, getting kings out of their own castle, out of an imaginary castle. We had discussions with clubs only because they hadn’t understood that high performance had arrived, that it was something that was long overdue. The last country had been Brazil in 2014 and it was 2018 and there was still no high performance “, he argues.

Problems that have managed to overcome to the extent, but still not completely behind. He criticizes the actions of the local league and the conformism of certain personalities in these same spaces. Despite this, he seems happy where he is. He says he has no doubts about the positive aspects of his stay in Chile and that the expiry date of his contract (December 2022) is not a problem for him.

It is his union with the team that satisfies him. Players trust him and vice versa, creating the conditions for the continuation of his message and his project. “I am a person who proposes a goal and if he is willing to accept it, we are all 100% committed to achieving it. But it’s an objective that is theirs and mine, it’s something general. I am demanding in carrying out this commitment to which they have decided to commit. The day they don’t decide to commit to something I’m sure we need to achieve our goal or plan, that day I’m leaving and they will continue. Because I consider these to be common goals warns directly, but this is not perceived as a threat.

And it is that as soon as he launches this sentence, he once again declares himself delighted with his players: “I had a spectacular group. They have even greater strength than I thought and that’s why I’m confident that we will arrive at the World Cup with even more tools. ”. In the end, that’s what’s important to Lemoine. The key to your method. The one who gave Chile the credit of being called a player of the World Cup.