Launched in D1 in January 1999, at 17, with SC Bastia, then driven by Laurent Fournier and led by scorer Pierre-Yves André, goalkeeper Nicolas Penneteau only hung up the crampons in 2023, at 42! The former international hope was goalkeeper number 3 of the Champenois in order to accompany the rise of Yehvann Diouf. Penneteau confides in the columns of The teamby telling his career in the summer special special dedicated to “EX WORDS”.
From his nine years in Corsica, Nicolas Penneteau remembers Michael Essien, his strongest teammate (from 2000 to 2003), Jean-Louis Leca, the funniest, Steve Savidan, the craziest in the Bastiian locker room, or his biggest laugh, still among the residents of Furiani, after a joke by Stéphane Ziani and Christian Karembeu.
He also crossed the road to Pascal Chimbonda for two seasons, from 2003 to 2005, and recounts an improbable fight with the right side arrived from Le Havre. In the shower!
Penneteau and Chimbonda, the naked fight
“In Bastia, we saved ourselves naked in the showers with Pascal Chimbonda after a match. I hadn't liked his behavior on the ground at all. François Ciccolini (the coach) had made him play left lateral to help out and Pascal showed that he did not want to play elsewhere in his right corridor. He walked, it was driving me crazy. I picked him up during the match, he reproached me in the shower. They had to get there with several to separate us “says Nicolas Penneteau in
The team.
Chimbonda has become French international (a selection). After Bastia, he joined Wigan and was voted best right side of Premier League in 2006! A big surprise of Raymond Domenech in the 23 of the French team for the World Cup in Germany, he lived the Blus's journey to the final against Italy, for the tragic outcome that we know, between the shot of Zinédine Zidane on Marco Materazzi and the penalty shootout against the Azzurri.
