I have never been a football fan, and will never be. But football is big here, and the local team has a big following. The stadium can seat about 18 000 people and the town itself has only about 8 000 inhabitants. En Avant Guingamp is not a big team, but they won the French Football cup in 2009. We discovered after we arrived that they train on the football grounds just behind our house, and we can see them most mornings.
Some big names have played in Guingamp: Didier Drogba is one of them, but also Jean-Pierre Papin and more. More surprising, Eduardo Ribeiro, who scored the winning goal in the final of the French worldcup in 2009, was a Christian and attended the local Gypsy church. He has since moved on, but had the opportunity to speak about his faith in the local medias after the team’s victory.