A MAN FINDING HIS TRUE HOME(S)EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JASNO ODONELEC by Nevenka Planinc“Hey Nevenka, how are you today?” Jasno Odonelec enquired as I sat down across from him for the interview. Unlike a lot of footballers, he was on-time and actually there before I was. Often I have been left for minutes that sometimes lapsed into hours as I waited for footballers to attend interviews I had organised, but not this time. Jasno Odonelec had been different, but then, he’s not exactly a normal footballer.
Born in a notoriously rough suburb of the Prahecqois city of Rouen called Clichy-sous-Bois, Odonelec faced a particularly tough childhood. His parents – both Mytanars, natives of Thessia – had decided to flee Mytanija before the worst years of the Mytanar Conflict had taken hold. They did not want to wait around to see specifically what type of harm Kalinina would exact upon them or their fellow Thessians, especially because Rosa Odonelec – Jasno’s mother – was pregnant. Fast-forward a few months and Jasno was born, safe from Kalinina in Prahecq.
With retrospect, fleeing Mytanija was an extremely good decision. As the Mytanar Conflict worsened, Kalinina’s regime began their most chilling operations. Genocide is the only word that is able to describe what occurred, with concentration camps being set-up especially for the eradication of so-called undesirables. Thessians often bore the brunt of Kalinina’s reign of terror, her hatred of them being reflected in her governmental policies. However, the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of Thessians (Rauchiks, Visoravs, gypsies, the LGBT community, left-wing politicians/activists were also murdered in such a way), perhaps illustrates her hatred a little more clearly. It also illustrates why the Odonelecs were right to escape whilst they could.
Whilst safe from the worst years of the Mytanar Conflict, it did not mean that Jasno had it easy. When asked to explain exactly what growing up in Clichy was like, he replied with a solitary word: ‘hard’.
In reality, it’s no wonder he was so blunt in response. Clichy-sous-Bois is known as a ‘
banlieue’, i.e. a suburb of a Prahecqois city. These suburbs can technically be upper-class and rich or working-class and poor. They can even include a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Nevertheless, in practice, the term ‘
banlieue’ is regularly used to describe troubled suburban communities – those with high unemployment, crime rates and frequently, a high proportion of residents of foreign origin. Usually these residents of foreign origin would be from former Prahecqois colonies (
Ittihad al-Maghrib al-Arabi and
Ketiou), but increasingly this means Mytanars too. Jasno Odonelec and his family being a prime example.
He was raised in a tower block, ubiquitous with such communities and the area around where he lived was regularly the scene of pitched battles between rival street gangs. Shootings were not uncommon:
“A school friend of mine was shot dead as he walked home from football practice one day. It was the worst day of my life. I was inconsolable when I found out. It was the street gangs, fighting over turf for selling drugs and he got caught in the crossfire. Mama said we may as well have been back in Mytanija.”
It was also the scene of riots, with locals, students and left-wing activists uniting to protest against the government which had seemingly forgotten about this community and allowed it to be run by gangs. Many felt like it was convenient for the government to do this, as they attempted to paint a picture of Prahecq as a modernising country without problems. As Jasno so succinctly pointed out:
“It felt like the politicians were almost saying: ‘why not let the foreigners kill each other in these suburbs outside of the major cities? That way we can make our cities look beautiful and trouble free to the outside world and ignore the problems in the
banlieues’. It felt like a ghetto, we couldn’t get out and it often felt like nothing would ever change.”
It is arguable that nothing particularly has changed for those communities even today, but football was the change for Jasno Odonelec as his prodigious abilities with a ball at his feet were noticed by both Rouennais clubs: Espérance and Clichy-sous-Bois. Deciding which one to play for was initially a difficult decision. Clichy was where Jasno was born, had lived all his life and it would be easier for him to get to training. Espérance were based in a more affluent area of the city, had more resources and were in
Le Championnat, the top-level of Prahecqois football. It was a real conundrum for Odonelec who was only 13 at the time.
“I wasn’t entirely sure what to do, my parents didn’t try and sway me either way and wanted the choice to be my own. I respect them for that. In the end Mama said to go to each team and see what it was like, where I felt more at home. We did exactly that and I’m so glad we did before making a decision.”
They went to Espérance first and the experience can be described as nothing other than harrowing, particularly for a 13 year old boy – as Odonelec would have been at the time. He went to see what it would be like and found very quickly that the boys he was playing with – all being from a richer part of Rouen – made jokes at his expense, laughed at his old, second-hand pair of boots and even went to the extent of not passing to him, purely because Odonelec was a kid from one of the
banlieues.
“It was horrible.” He said. “Honestly it goes down as one of the worst days of my life, even now. It was embarrassing, humiliating. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through it, especially at that age when those sort of things hurt so much. I was there, doing all the individual drills with the ball and without and I was doing everything perfectly. I tried to crack a joke with one of the lads and he ignored me completely. Next thing I know, there’s some kids sniggering and pointing at my boots, from them on I tried to hide them by having the ball cover them. They even called me ‘
un laid gosse’, it means ‘an ugly kid’, but it’s more to do with how poor someone is than how they look. Next thing I know and we’re playing a 7-a-side game and nobody would pass to me. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.”
I tried to press him on any potential positives of the try-out and he failed to pick out any. Although he did say: “I had the last laugh though, I was the only one there that day that made it pro!”
He went home in tears to his mother and she told him not to worry, that they would try at Clichy and that she was sure it would all be okay. She turned out to be right.
“I went to Clichy and it felt so much more comfortable. I was there with lads the same as me, from Clichy, from all sorts of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Maghrebis, Ketioulais, other Mytanars and we all got along. It was actually really nice and we played some really good football. We won the CJP [Prahecqois Youth Cup], one year and that really raised some eyebrows around the country. The politicians were always going on about how problematic Clichy and areas like it were and here was a squad representing one of those communities with players from all sorts of backgrounds and we won the whole thing playing as a team.”
It was also the exact opposite to the situation at home, the Mytanar Conflict may have ended, but the ethnic tension had not dissipated and violence was still not uncommon. Odonelec feels they could have learned a lot from the Prahecqois
banlieues in solving the ethnic tension crises that plagued Mytanija for years following the civil war.
“Don’t get me wrong, the place wasn’t without its problems, but on the whole we all just got along because you’re living next door to a Ketioulais family on one side and a Maghrebi family on the other – how can you be racist or prejudiced when you quite literally have to get on with these people in order to just exist?” Indeed, he makes a good point. It is one that is applicable to Thessians and Zentrians, or Rauchiks and Vojoviticans and it is something that the younger generation of Mytanars is seeming to grasp.
Indeed, it definitely did work out for Jasno Odonelec with his hometown (or should it be home
suburb?) club. He grew up supporting Clichy-sous-Bois, going to games as an escape from the reality of living in the
banlieue and now he plays for them. Last season, he was the catalyst for the club’s promotion from the second tier of Prahecqois football into
Le Championnat. They finished 2nd, with Odonelec winning the Golden Boot with 26 goals and the Player of the Season award at that level. In truth, watching games back, it was clear to see that he was a class above the competition and probably could have plied his trade at a higher level if he wanted to. But that is rather the point with Odonelec – that’s not what is important to him.
“The club had offers for me the summer before the season we got promoted and they asked me what I wanted to do. They weren’t exactly strapped for cash but they could do with the extra funds and they left the decision up to me. I didn’t want to leave, I’m from Clichy and I feel so proud in playing for the club and representing the area that leaving at such an early stage in my career just didn’t feel right.” Before laughing as he added: “So I stayed and I told the owner that I would get the club promoted and we could sort the cash-flow problem out that way.”
He also has a younger brother, Usten, playing for the club. He is a towering centre-half and aged 16 will start for the club in
Le Championnat next season. He couldn’t believe that Jasno didn’t accept one offer in particular, which Jasno sheepishly explained:
“Yeah, haha, we’re both Clichy fans first but our second club is Atletik Thessia – because our family is from there and they all support the club, Dad was a really big fan back in the day. They came in with an offer and Usten was so shocked that I didn’t go, but I feel at home here and I had unfinished business.”
The fact he feels at home in Clichy is not exactly surprising, he was born in the
banlieue, was raised there, and has lived there for the entirety of his 21 years. He also has a real affinity with the club’s multicultural, multi-ethnic supporters.
“I think the most touching thing was the huge tifo with me, Abdou[laye Keita] and Youssef [Hamou] on it. It said: ‘
le monde est à vous’, which means ‘the world is yours’, but it had the ‘
vous’ crossed out and changed to ‘
nous’, which means ‘the world is ours’ and that really meant a lot. I’m the same as the fans and if I wasn’t a player I’d be in the tribunes with them, living every moment like they do and supporting the team. Before I’m a player I’m a fan, I’m one of them and that acknowledgement of that – on the tifo with my team mates Abdou and Youssef – meant a lot.”
The ‘
le monde est à vous’ thing was also a governmental scheme aimed at young people saying – more or less – that they could be anything they wanted to be. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the scheme didn’t really reach into the
banlieues too much, especially Clichy-sous-Bois, which only had two visits from the government department responsible for running the scheme – compared to upwards of fifty in some more affluent areas. It was this that the Clichy supporters were referencing and mocking with that choreography, along with lauding the players that had been brought through the club’s youth system and were from the
banlieue. Their representatives on the pitch.
Odonelec’s form in his side’s promotion winning season earned him a call-up to the Mytanar national team and during World Cup qualifying he played 16 times and scored 4 goals. He played for Mytanija despite being born in Prahecq and being so passionate about calling Clichy-sous-Bois his home.
“It was a complicated decision and despite being born in Clichy and it being the place I identify as my ‘home’, I also feel very distinctly Mytanar. I’m a native of Clichy who happens to also be Mytanar. In our flat when we were growing up Mama always spoke to us in Mytanar and culturally everything was very Mytanar at home, we’d watch Mytanar television and eat Mytanar food. In the end, it was an easy decision for me. Whilst being from Clichy, I feel like a lot of Prahecq has never wanted me to be Prahecqois, the experience at the try out at Espérance as well as other interactions with – usually native Prahecqois people who had never experienced the
banlieue – made me feel like I always was different. I’ve never seen my Dad happier than when I made my debut for Mytanija, but he respects that I say I’m from Clichy as well as being Mytanar and understands it.”
Odonelec has fast become an integral part of the team, a creative hub just behind the strikers and a player who has forged an excellent relationship with Jezdimir Ocokoljic – the team’s key man. The pair are both 21 and great friends off the field as well as on it.
“I love Jez, he’s a top guy and I think because we’re from the same generation we get on like a house on fire. We don’t have the problems previous generations of Mytanar players may have had where their performances were marred by the ethnic tensions because they didn’t really get on, but I think the likes of me Jez, Tahir [Fejzuli], Srdan [Vukovic], Mojmir [Anac] and the rest all just
get each other. We’re part of a generation of Mytanars that have put all that behind us because we can see it for what it is: a load of bullshit. Thessian or Visorav or Magev or Rauchik or whatever, Zentrian, the rest of them! It doesn’t matter. I’m fuckin’ Prahecqois by birth, Mytanar by heritage and I call Clichy-sous-Bois home but the two places I care about most are Mytanija and Clichy and most of these lads care about the town they were born, or playing for their football club and playing for Mytanija and that’s the important thing.”
He’s right too, a generation of young Mytanar
is starting to put the old tensions behind them and the wounds of civil war and genocide left by the Mytanar Conflict and Kalinina’s dictatorship are slowly beginning to heal. That can be seen by
the announcement of the first democratic elections since the end of the Mytanar Conflict a few weeks ago.
For Odonelec, playing for Mytanija has given him something he perhaps would never have felt if he had played for the land of his birth: a true sense of belonging. His experiences in Prahecq have often made him feel ‘othered’ by native Prahecqois people and it is telling that he feels most at home in Clichy, the community he was born into that is made-up almost exclusively of immigrants. Clichy is a place he can’t be ‘othered’ as they’re all in the same boat. With the national side he feels a sense of belonging, representing his true homeland, the land of his ancestors. He plays alongside compatriots, people who understand what it is to be Mytanar – a generation of players who feel like they are Mytanar first and not Zentrian or Thessian or anything else. Times are a-changing and Jasno Odonelec is a good example of it.
A Prahecq-born footballer of Mytanar heritage, proud to represent the place he was born and feels most at-home in the form of his club side Clichy-sous-Bois whilst at international level representing Mytanija, the land of his parents and his cultural homeland.
Jasno Odonelec has finally found his home(s).