Steve Mandanda Wins SPORTEL 2026 Autobiography Award
France.- 17 September 2026 | www.zonadeazar.com Former France goalkeeper Steve Mandanda has been named the winner of the 2026 SPORTEL Awards Autobiography Prize for Les jours d’après, a book focused on the emotional and personal challenges that follow retirement from professional sport.
Published by Flammarion in May, the autobiography explores the transition from elite competition to a life without the routines, dressing rooms and structures that shaped Mandanda’s career.
A Book About What Comes Next
Mandanda deliberately moves away from the conventional sporting memoir built primarily around matches, trophies and career anecdotes.
Les jours d’après instead examines what happens once a career ends and the structure that organised almost every aspect of an athlete’s life suddenly disappears.
Retirement as the Starting Point
The 2018 World Cup winner ended his playing career on 10 September 2025, when he turned 40.
After roughly 25 years within elite football, retirement became the central subject of his autobiography.
Emptiness and Loss of Reference Points
The book describes the sense of emptiness that can follow the end of professional competition.
Mandanda reflects on losing routines, objectives, schedules and familiar reference points that had been part of his daily life from a young age.
Rebuilding an Identity
A central theme is the need to establish an identity that is no longer defined exclusively by professional football.
The former goalkeeper describes developing new habits and seeking new projects while adjusting to a life without daily training and competitive fixtures.
A “Symbolic Death”
Mandanda describes the transition as a form of symbolic death for the athlete.
The idea reflects the rupture that can occur when an activity that has functioned simultaneously as profession, routine and identity suddenly ends.
Dressing-Room Nostalgia
The memoir also explores nostalgia for the ordinary elements of professional football.
Mandanda recalls dressing-room life, training sessions and the constant relationships with team-mates and coaching staff.
An Unusual Perspective
That focus on life after retirement was central to SPORTEL’s recognition.
Rather than simply documenting a career that included Olympique de Marseille, Rennes and Crystal Palace, the book examines a less visible part of elite sport.
SPORTEL Recognition
The Autobiography Prize recognises a sports personality judged to have written the year’s leading autobiography.
SPORTEL highlighted Mandanda’s ability to turn an intensely personal experience into a broader reflection on what happens when an athlete must reinvent themselves after dedicating most of their life to competition.
Marine Picoulet Highlights Its Honesty
SPORTEL Awards Executive Director Marine Picoulet praised Mandanda for addressing an intimate experience that is often absent from public narratives around major sporting careers.
The organisation particularly highlighted the honesty with which he approaches personal reinvention.
International Career
Mandanda was one of the most recognisable French goalkeepers of his generation.
He was part of France’s 2018 World Cup-winning squad and spent the majority of his professional career with Olympique de Marseille.
His career also included spells with Crystal Palace and Stade Rennais.
Sporting Memoirs Are Changing
The award reflects a wider evolution in sports autobiographies.
Many books are moving beyond chronological accounts of results and trophies to explore identity, pressure, ageing, emotional wellbeing and the transition away from elite competition.
Monaco Ceremony
Mandanda will formally receive the award on 19 October 2026 during the SPORTEL Awards ceremony.
The event will take place at the Grimaldi Forum Monaco as part of the wider SPORTEL Monaco programme.
An Established Award
SPORTEL has recognised autobiographies from major international sporting figures across several disciplines.
The category seeks to reward work that combines sporting significance with strong narrative and personal testimony.
Wider Sporting Context
Retirement is receiving increasing attention within discussions around athlete wellbeing.
After years of highly structured routines, public exposure and constant competition, leaving professional sport can require substantial personal adjustment.
Les jours d’après places that transition at the centre of the story.
Next Steps and Impact
The October ceremony will formally honour Mandanda, but the announcement already places his book among the notable sports autobiographies of 2026.
The award also draws attention to one of the less visible dimensions of professional sport: what happens when competition ends and the athlete must rebuild routines, ambitions and identity away from the game.
Editó: @fonta
