The team that will make 'Els segadors' ring in the heart of Paris

BarcelonaOn June 6, 'Els segadors' will sound in the heart of Paris. To understand how we got here, we need to pull a thread that takes us back to the years of the Civil War in l'Espluga de Francolí. Josep Guasch, a militant of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya who had held a position in the mayor's office, fled to France, where he ended up in the Argelers prisoner camp, enduring hardships on the sand of this beach where so many Republicans were interned. A few years later, his wife and children reunited with him there and put down roots in Perpignan. Josep dedicated himself to being a farmer, as he had done in Conca de Barberà. And one of his sons, also named Josep, would stand out as a rugby player for both USAP of Perpignan and for XIII Catalan, a team that played a thirteen-a-side rugby game, a version of this sport in which it is not played with fifteen players. They say that when XIII Catalan negotiated his signing, Josep told them he had a job in a butcher shop and was not sure if he could train. The club, therefore, bought the butcher shop and gave it to him. As the owner, he could then train and play as he pleased.

This is how the story begins, leading us to the Dracs Catalans of Perpignan, one of the best thirteen-a-side rugby teams on the continent. Who is the club's president? Bernard Guasch, Josep's son and the mayor's grandson. A man who, before every match in Perpignan, plays 'Els segadors' in the stadium. This year, the Dracs are celebrating their first twenty years of existence in top form. A club that is an heir to XIII Catalanin the stadium. This year the Dracs celebrate their first twenty years of life in top form. A club heir to the Twenty years ago, the Dracs entered the professional Rugby League. A competition born in the United Kingdom in the nineties in which the Catalans have achieved good results. A league considered the second most powerful in the world, only behind the Australian one. The idea of the tournament creators was to include French clubs, but only the Dracs have regularly competed outside the islands. In 2006, the coach at the time was the Australian Mike Potter, who raised the level of a team that has been runner-up twice and has won the Challenge Cup once at Wembley Stadium in 2018. Now the Catalans continue to aspire to everything. And to celebrate their first twenty years of life, they will play this coming June 6 in Paris against the Wigan Warriors, the team with which they lost the league final three years ago.

From Perpignan to Paris

The city of Paris once had a thirteen-a-side rugby team in the Super League, Paris Saint-Germain. In fact, the first match in the competition's history was a PSG-Sheffield in 2006, but the football club quickly lost interest in its thirteen-a-side rugby section and made it disappear. Now this form of rugby will once again experience a match in the French capital thanks to the Dracs. "It wasn't easy at all to bring a match to Paris, but the league officials have trusted us. Twenty years later we are still here and I hope we haven't exhausted our capacity to surprise," says Bernard Guasch, who admits that the idea of playing in Paris had been on his mind for years. "The idea was to do it years ago, but the pandemic postponed everything," comments a man who always seeks to surprise, as they did in 2019 when they played at the Camp Nou in Barcelona a match with 31,555 spectators, a record for the club.

"It's a special season with thirteen new players in the squad. Our goals are to be very competitive. And to have a clear identity as a team and as a club," explains Guasch, who was clear twenty years ago that "}Els segadors" had to be played before each match to reinforce the team's commitment to Catalan identity. If USAP of Perpignan, a fifteen-a-side rugby team, plays "}L'estaca" before their matches, when the Dracs play, the Catalan anthem is played. And if USAP has normally been the dominant club in Catalan rugby, in recent years the Dracs have been doing better, and they will play "}Els segadors" at the Jean Bouin stadium in Paris this June. It is a venue that holds 19,000 people. "We want to fill the stadium, that is our intention. We will work to try to arrange trains to bring people from the south to Paris, not only from Perpignan, but also from towns with a rugby tradition. Many people in Paris also follow this sport. And we have a large Catalan community in the city, so our idea is to mobilize all these communities," adds Guasch, who is determined for the club to be Super League champions one day. They have always come close, but he does not give up, while the Dracs continue to be the best ambassadors for Catalan rugby.