The team introduces itself
Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace has a turbulent history marked by numerous ups and downs. In 2011, the club had to start afresh as a newly founded side in the fifth tier of French football. Since then, it has worked its way up season by season and re-established itself firmly in Ligue 1. The club colours are blue and white, which is why the Alsatians, like the French national team, are nicknamed ‘Les Bleus’.
As a pioneer in the field of youth development, Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace established a structure for training young players as early as 1972. In 1974, the club was among the first in France to set up a so-called ‘Centre de formation’.
Renamed the Racing Mutest Académie in 2019, the centre operates under the motto “Learn to be small to become great”. Indeed, some of the most illustrious names in French football hail from the club based in the Alsatian metropolis, such as Léonard Specht and Albert Gemmrich. From Strasbourg, some very well-known managers also made their mark on the football world: Arsène Wenger, who played a key role in the club’s youth department in the early 1980s, and Gilbert Gress, who led RCS to their first league title in 1979 and subsequently achieved cult status in Switzerland as a club and national team manager, as well as a long-standing TV pundit.
Many of the players trained at Racing went on to establish themselves as professionals in Strasbourg and elsewhere. Some of them went on to become internationals and played for major European clubs. The first was José Cobos (Paris Saint-Germain, Espanyol Barcelona). Kevin Gameiro (PSG, Sevilla FC, Atlético Madrid), Martin Djetou (Monaco, Parma, Fulham) and Olivier Dacourt (Everton, AS Roma, Inter Milan) also put Racing on the map in the major European leagues. Morgan Schneiderlin (Manchester United, Everton) is the most recent example in this line-up. All of them also wore the French national team jersey.