Serge Blanco the bazooka: France’s Mr Fixit

He’s a remarkable man, is Serge Blanco, a one-off, someone who has become part of the fabric of French life in his 56 years, and who today is charged with helping transform the national rugby team into credible World Cup contenders.

What makes Blanco’s success so remarkable is that his life begun in humble and tragic circumstances.

He was born in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, to a French mother and a Venezuelan father, a policeman called Pedro, who died of a heart-attack when his son was just two. His widow returned home, settling with her infant son in Biarritz, the chic beach resort in the south-west of France.

As a child Blanco was never much good in the classroom. The sports field was his domain. But in those amateur days of the late 1970s a man couldn’t make his living from rugby.

So after leaving school at 17 Blanco went to work in an aircraft factory as a mechanic. He was there for eight years, during which time he graduated from the Biarritz side to the France team, winning in 1980 the first of 93 caps.

What a player he was, this ‘Pelé du rugby’, as the French called him. His talent was the sort bestowed by the Gods, not chiselled out of hours of hard training.

Even at the height of his career, Blanco smoked like a chimney and paid scant attention to fitness. But still he was a full-back par excellence. So graceful in flight, one of those rare rugby players who seems to glide not run, yet there was more to his game than just pace.

What hands he had, what vision, that swerve and sidestep, and such exquisite timing. In an era when France had a jewel box of a backline – Philippe Sella, Patrice Lagisquet, Jean-Baptiste Lafond and Franck Mesnel – Blanco sparkled like no other.

Twenty four years after his international retirement Blanco is, in polite parlance, a little on the chunky side. One can’t really blame him. He has so many interests he probably has no time to worry about his weight.

He left the aircraft factory in 1983, swapping greasy overalls for a snappy suit as a public relations man for a drinks company. Then, in 1991, Blanco opened his first health spa, just a few miles up the coast from Biarritz, and over the course of the next decade he emerged as an entrepreneur every bit as bold as he had been a player. He launched a clothing range, gave his name to rugby’s first video game, became a TV rugby pundit and, in 2002, opened his first luxury hotel.

But that wasn’t all. In tandem with his flourishing business career Blanco was establishing himself as one of the most influential figures in French rugby.

Elected president of Biarritz in 1995, Blanco became president of the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR, the French clubs’ governing body) in 1998, a position he held until 2008.

In that time professional rugby in France began its growth from minority sport to the huge money-spinning enterprise of today, the most lucrative and star-studded championship in world rugby.

Blanco left the LNR to go over to the ‘other side’, the FFR (Fédération Française de Rugby), the body that oversees the interest of the sport as a whole in France and which, for many years, has been at loggerheads with the professional clubs.

His primary task is to oversee the construction of ‘Le Grand Stade de Rugby’, the FFR’s new 82,000-seat national stadium that will open in 2020 to the south of Paris.

Blanco is one of eight vice-presidents within the FFR and there is strong speculation that next year he will replace Pierre Camou as president. In the meantime Blanco has been appointed to the backroom staff of the France squad and while he has no official title, he dismisses the idea that he is the “manager”.

France coach Philippe Saint-Andre has two assistants, Patrice Lagisquet (backs) and Yannick Bru (forwards) and it was the latter who recently described Blanco as “a facilitator in all aspects”. In short Blanco is the coaching staff’s ‘Monsieur Fixer’, charged with minimising off-field distractions and removing obstacles in this high-pressure World Cup year.

One such instance occurred earlier in the season when Lagisquet felt La Rochelle weren’t being fully cooperative vis-à-vis the demands of the national squad. A quick call to Blanco and that all changed. “It’s a sort of bazooka,” reflected Lagisquet of Blanco, “in front of a door that’s a little hard to open.”

One of Blanco’s chief functions is media relations. Saint-Andre, with his hang-dog demeanour, has never sparkled in front of the press but Blanco is a different beast. Combining bonhomie and belligerence, he is never shy of speaking his mind.

In July last year, in his first major interview since joining the staff of Les Bleus, Blanco declared that the results of France since reaching the final of the 2011 World Cup had been “completely negative and it would be fraudulent to say otherwise”.

One of Blanco’s solutions to reversing three years of decline was to help broker an agreement between the LNR and the FFR limiting the top 30 French players to a maximum of 30 matches a season. Blanco has also won Saint-Andre more time to prepare the national squad so that to date this season there have been three short training camps, unheard of in previous years.

Asked if his presence might undermine Saint-Andre and his coaches, Blanco insists he “is there to assist”. He gives an example. Like Saint-Andre, Patrice Lagisquet is not by nature an extrovert and is prone to frustration if he feels the players aren’t taking on board his coaching. Blanco acts as the conduit, ensuring clear lines of communication between players and coach.

He also goes out of his way to make new members of the squad feel at ease, helping them overcome any initial diffidence. “Serge has been really good to me,” explains Scott Spedding, the South African-born full-back who made his France debut in November.

“When I joined the squad he came to see me a lot, asking how I was settling in and if I needed anything. He brings a reassurance and a confidence to the squad, not just because of his experience but by the sheer force of his personality. He takes no nonsense from the French press, either…laying down the law when he needs to.”

A confidence, but also a candidness. When Teddy Thomas marked his France debut in November with a hat-trick of tries against Fiji, Blanco made a point of putting the press right on

the young winger’s performance. “He scored 25 points,” he declared. “Fifteen for France, ten for the others!”. Concealed within the jokey reference to Thomas’s poor defensive positioning that had gifted the Fijians two tries, was a sharp reminder that the 21-year-old still has much to learn.

Serge Kampf, the business tycoon whose company has sponsored Biarritz since 1992, once said of Blanco (in many ways his protégé): “Everything that he sets out to do, he succeeds. He is a genius of anticipation, a born leader.”

But in aligning himself with the national squad Blanco has put his winning reputation on the line. Yes, Les Bleus have won three of their four matches since his involvement began but now come the real challenges.

Putting to one side temporarily the long-term objective of the World Cup, Blanco believes France are in with a shout of winning their first Six Nations title since 2010. “So what!” he retorted last week, when reminded that would entail winning in Dublin and Twickenham. “If we wish to become the best we must be capable of winning wherever.”

That’s Blanco for you. Blunt, bullish and oozing self-belief. But will it rub off on Les Bleus?