For Yann Kermorgant, on Tuesday night at the Emirates Stadium his professional career will come somewhat full circle. The Reading striker is a former team-mate of Olivier Giroud in France’s second division and remains close enough to the 30-year-old to exchange texts and take occasional tickets to watch him at Arsenal. In the EFL Cup the pair are in line to go head to head for the first time.
If the reunion sounds an unlikely one from their respective time at Grenoble, it is remarkable that Kermorgant has been able to play professionally at all. At the age of 14, while on the books of the Rennes academy after leaving family and home comforts behind in Brittany, the Frenchman was diagnosed with leukaemia and told by doctors that his career was finished before it had started. Kermorgant underwent two years of treatment and did not kick a ball for the next four.
“I was told I was not supposed to play football again, that I would struggle to run and even to walk,” Kermorgant says. “But I got better and better and I started to play football for fun with my friends. I was still a student and I was not thinking about playing properly again. After I started to feel better but I was not in the right place to do so. I needed to move somewhere outside the cocoon of my family and friends and everything. I gave myself a year to see if I could succeed and if not, I would carry on with my studies.”
Kermorgant never looked back. After juggling his degree in sports science and sports management at the University of Rennes with playing for his hometown club Vannes, he joined the fourth-tier club Châtellerault. His form there – hitting double figures over the course of the season – earned him a professional contract with Grenoble, the Ligue 2 club, at the age of 24. At the same time, a young Giroud was maturing after coming through the club’s academy.
“We played together a long time ago now,” recalls Kermorgant. “I played a few games with him over one season but not many because he came from the academy, he was young and after he went on loan.”
Giroud would impress on loan at Istres before joining Tours in 2008. Kermorgant arrived in England a year later with Leicester City, after a spell at Stade Reims, missing the crucial penalty (with an attempted Panenka) in the 2010 Championship play-off semi-final against Cardiff City. He moved to Charlton Athletic and then Bournemouth while Giroud joined Arsenal after two free-scoring years with Montpellier.
A decade has now passed since Kermorgant and a baby-faced, beardless Giroud would practise shooting drills at the foot of the French Alps.
“It’s funny because I always try … not to protect him but to tell people to stop saying he’s not good enough because they shouldn’t have this stance,” Kermorgant says, asked about the criticism levelled at the France striker. “It’s always the same for strikers but even more for the French. You get stick every time you do not score or get stick if the team does not win. Maybe it’s also because of his style of play as a target man, maybe he’s not the quickest striker but he’s got different abilities and strength. He proves he’s a really good striker by scoring 15-plus goals every season.
“I text him quite often: when he scores, when there’s a big game or when he has been criticised for something. I just try to tell him not to worry about the criticism in football. I say the most important things in life are your family and friends – the people who love you.
“Since he’s been at Arsenal sometimes he has got me tickets and I have been to watch him. But it’s been difficult to meet each other for dinner or something like that because we are both busy with families, so it will be good to meet up at the game.”
Kermorgant says his son, Mathéo, and Calie, his six-month old daughter, keep him and his wife, Melvina, busy at the family home near Fulham. “I’m happy as a family man and we are really pleased to be back in London and I’m playing almost every game,” he says. “We go to the park with the kids and I like to go to the cinema with my son. We have Bishops Park, there’s Chelsea as well to have a walk and there’s lots of things to do.”
While at Bournemouth, Kermorgant would use the Poole–Cherbourg ferry crossing to visit friends and relatives in Brittany. “I do not get back home to France as much as I want, of course, because we play almost every weekend, except the international breaks, but hopefully I will get the chance to go back in November,” he says. “I used to take the boat in the summer. I would take my car, with all the stuff packed for the kids, and drive back home the other side.”
Giroud should be fit for the match after a toe injury but Kermorgant could have the missed the trip to the Emirates had the striker picked up his fifth booking of the season during Reading’s 1-0 win at Rotherham United on Saturday. Kermorgant, restricted to a bit-part role in the Premier League at Bournemouth, has been virtually ever-present under Jaap Stam this season, starting all but one league game under the Dutchman.
“We needed a shakeup and that’s what the manager has done, to be fair,” the 34-year-old says, after Reading finished 17th in the Championship last term. “He is honest, he’s got a big character – like he had as a player – a big presence, tall and strong. It will not be easy but I think we have a good group of players and I’m excited about this season because I really think we can achieve something.” Reading will doubtless be the underdogs to progress at Arsenal but Kermorgant has a habit of overcoming the odds.
