50 years of MHSC: Bonnissel and Carotti, the left-behinds who became executives of a golden generation

Bruno Carotti (à l’arrière plan) et Jérôme Bonnissel, deux cadres du MHSC des années 93-96. Midi Libre – Archives

With an amateur license for one, without a contract at the training center for the other, the two players ended up blossoming and pulling up a generation of Lefèvre, Alicarte, and other Sanchez, finalist of the Cup in 1994.

A special issue of 84 pages

Condensing half a century of history into 84 pages. This is the challenge taken up by the sports editorial team at Midi Libre in this special edition on the 50th anniversary of the MHSC. Available on newsstands on December 11 for just 5 euros, this glossy magazine will allow you to relive the great moments in the history of the Montpellier club through our “50” who made the MHSC. Players, coaches and builders, of course, starting with this “Nicollin Saga”, told by Laurent and Colette, the wife of the late Loulou. A special edition packed with anecdotes and unpublished photos with an exclusive interview with Olivier Giroud.

A special issue available on newsstands. Midi Libre

Click here to order our special issue 50 years of MHSC

The last are sometimes first. At the dawn of the 90s, Montpellier cleaned up its accounts and went on a diet after the excesses of a life of stars and glitter. This cure created a breath of fresh air for the second generation of the training center. Among the host of kids who will hatch in the Grammont incubator, two start from a little further back than the others: Bruno Carotti and Jérôme Bonnissel.

Carotti had been rejected at the training center

“With Bruno, we were the only two who didn't have a contract. In any case, I was an average player and I didn't imagine having a career at the highest level”,says Bonnissel, who was at the training center without ever having had the slightest contract.

Bruno Carotti, who arrived at the age of 14, had not been kept at the training center and had an amateur license.

Under the leadership of the elders, Der Zak and Laurey

A wounded self-esteem for Carotti, a trigger for Bonnissel, under the effect of a confidence boosted by the trainers, Patrick Chauvry and Jacques Bonnet, everything unleashed at the quarter turn for both of them. “After two or three games in the first division, I freed myself,” says the former defender with the same spontaneity as at 20 years old.

Read also: 50 years of MHSC: Jean-Louis Gasset, the heir to a family history between passion and friendship

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Alongside Christophe Sanchez, Fabien Lefèvre, Serge Blanc, Franck Rizzetto, and the brothers Bruno and Hervé Alicarte, Carotti and Bonnissel are giving Montpellier a second lease of life under the experienced yoke of the Der Zakarian-Laurey hinge.

Read also: 50 years of the MHSC: “We felt strong and united”… Thierry Laurey recounts the epic in the 1994 Coupe de France

“I passed my baccalaureate alongside Laurent Nicollin”

They leave behind them their teammate Laurent Nicollin. “I passed my Baccalaureate alongside Laurent, with whom I played for several seasons. In fact, I knew Mr. Nicollin as Laurent's father before he became my president. With Colette, they came to see him play on Sundays,” tells the kid from Vendargues.

Carried by their carefree attitude and the bonds of the same generation, they lived the epic in the Coupe de France until the final lost at the Parc des Princes against Auxerre. “It's not a good memory even if we weren't expected there. There was such excitement after our qualification for the quarter-finals in Marseille or the semi-finals in Lens that we weren't there, in the final”, he grumbles.

Semi-finals of the Euro espoirs

They all revealed themselves little by little. Four of them took part in the semi-finals of the European espoir championship in Montpellier and Nîmes in April 94. Alongside Dugarry, Zidane, Micoud, Makelele, Thuram… against the Italy of Cannavaro, Panucci, Toldo… or the Portugal of Rui Costa, Luis Figo…

Bruno Carotti, now manager of the club, here with Michel Mézy. Midi Libre – FRANCK VALENTIN

Both are the first to leave the cocoon. “I explode the following season, against the tide of the team which is having a difficult season”,says Jérôme Bonnissel. The left-back became the captain of Raymond Domenech's Espoirs and went to the Atlanta Olympics alongside Pires, Wiltord, Maurice… The same season, he signed for La Coruña, before returning three years later to Bordeaux, where he played in the same role as the emblematic Girondin Bixente Lizarazu.

Loyalty as a legacy

Bruno Carotti continued his career in 1995 at Nantes, the new French champion. Before going to Paris SG. Where life had a nasty tackle in store for him from behind. In the capital, he lost his two-year-old child and branched off towards other ambitions. “As far as my best memories go, they are in Montpellier”, assures the former central defender, holder of a manager's diploma.

At the end of his career, completed across the Channel, Bonnissel joined the recruitment unit of Lyon, then Rennes, under the leadership of Franck Maurice.

Loulou's kiss and gifts for Bruno Carotti's “der” in 2009, in the evening of Montpellier – Strasbourg. Midi Libre – RICHARD DE HULLESSEN

Bruno Carotti finished his career in Montpellier the year of the return to Ligue 1 in 2009. Twenty years after the great years at the training center, the current sports director finds himself alongside Laurent Nicollin, who has become deputy president. Others, the Lefèvres, Rizzettos, Rouvières or Delayes, intermittently or permanently, will join them to form a new circle alongside the new president of Montpellier. Loyalty as a legacy.

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