«We were introduced in August 2002. We met with him and Alvaro Crespi in Lugano. Patrick is an intimidating person, if you don't know him well.He was that kind of man back then, a cancer survivor. He had an almost magical aura. After that meeting, I saw him a couple of times, and then we met again at the training camp and the team presentation in January 2003. He led her, rider by rider. And finally he came to me, pronounced my name and said something in Flemish, which I didn't understand, though..."
Alessandro Tegner He tells. The 21 years with Patrick Lefevere, moving from the role of press officer to that of the team's marketing manager, would rather deserve a book. And now that the big boss has decided to pass the hand, handing over the role of CEO to Jurgen Foré Soudal-Quick Step but still remaining on the board, rereading the story is a journey through episodes experienced for long stretches side by side.
"Back then, going to work in Belgium," he explains, "wasn't like it is now, when the world is so small. It was still a journey, you know that well. There was a significant language barrier, a world completely different from oursI didn't speak Flemish at the beginning. Patrick's joke was explained to me during the presentation by Stéphane Thirion, the journalist from Le Soir. "This is Alessandro," he said. our new press office. They told me he's good.”. I felt my blood run cold. I thought: Damn, three months and I'm home.
The history of cycling
Lefevere made cycling history. Through ups and downs, his teams have always left important marks, ever since it landed in Italy in 1992 with Mg-Gb, the first multinational cycling company. He won countless editions of the Tour of Flanders, the Roubaix and other Flemish classics. with Museeuw, Boonen, Devolder, Terpstra, Gilbert, Ballerini and Tafi. The Sanremo, the Flèche Wallonne, the Liège and the Lombardy with Bettini, Pozzato, Alaphilippe and Evenepoel. Hundreds of sprints with Boonen, Kittel, Cavendish, Gaviria, Viviani, Jakobsen, Merlier and leadouts like Morkov and Richeze. With 981 career wins, his win count is a recordA road paved with successes and also some thorny cases from which Lefevere always emerged with clear acquittals.
His retirement closes an era and projects the team towards a future yet to be written, with a leader like evenepoel stubbornly held back Despite the unbridled attention of Ineos Grenadiers and Red Bull-Bora, we like to imagine him as a contented D'Artagnan who, tired of leading the latest duel, has chosen to pass on the mantle and sword to younger managers for the good of the team he built.
Can you draw a comparison between Patrick Lefevere and Giorgio Squinzi? Did they have anything in common in your opinion?
I was fortunate enough to work with Giorgio Squinzi for a couple of seasons. He had incredible decision-making skills. One aspect that I think links him to Patrick was his ability to solve problems.I remember an endless meeting at Mapei, on the fourth floor of the marketing department. We were discussing a thousand things and couldn't find the answer. Until he arrived, appeared at the door, and asked us to explain the problem. "Excuse me," he said, "but why don't you do it this way?" In one minute he solved something we had been arguing about for a whole day..
Is Patrick like that?
You can't imagine how many times I called him to get out of a difficult situation. And when I did, with his incredible ability to read things, he would tell me that it could be done in a certain way. I looked at him and thought: damn, I had the solution right in front of my eyes and I couldn't see it.We are talking about champions, not for nothing have they both reached the top in their work.
Is Patrick a fan of the Belgian rider or the strong rider?
Patrick has always been a fan of the strong rider. He always had an eye for the Belgians, because for that type of sponsor the Belgian market was very importantBut he created the first truly international team since Mapei. There were riders of 10 or 11 nationalities, and we spoke English among ourselves, and Patrick wanted us to do so. He has always managed to combine incredible qualities and mentality.Do you see Paolo Bettini and Tom Boonen in the same team? Like now having Pogacar and Van der Poel coexist. And he did it. He revitalized Virenque, Gilbert, and Cavendish. He was certainly more in love with strong riders than with Belgian riders.. And he always spent important words for the staff, for the mechanics and the masseurs.
In what way?
He always said that Riders come and go, while the staff is the backbone of the teamsThese are teachings that you then somehow manage to assimilate, day after day. This is where the mentality and what we called the Wolfpack comes from, which has existed since the first day the team was founded and It's the expression of Patrick's spirit. His way of doing things, his way of helping each other and collaborating.He's the man who created all this, there's no doubt about it. If you come to Belgium, Patrick is an opinion leader on many things.
Patrick has also been through press campaigns against him regarding doping, but he has never bowed his head.
Patrick never bowed his head and the proof that he was right came with the cases he wonHe never gave up. We worked day and night to get to the bottom of it, but these things are very instructive. When you see your boss standing firm and saying nothing happened, an uncommon strength comes over you. If you look at Patrick, you understand that he is not telling you a casprint. So you jump into the fire and do whatever needs to be done.
A true leader?
In difficult situations, Patrick becomes very cold. He becomes incredibly clear, not just about this case, I'm talking in general about the thousand things that have happened.When it seems like everything around you is falling apart, he always has the coolness and clarity to find solutions to everything. And in this, he becomes an even more prominent figure. It's something I've tried to make my own, trying to see things with more detachment when there are important events, so as to have a more objective point of view.
Was there a moment after that 2003 presentation when Patrick patted you on the back?
Patrick isn't a man who gives compliments. I learned what he thought of me from other people or I understood it from small gestures or in certain moments in which the trust goes beyond workSpending so much time together, talking on the phone every day, I got to know him differently. Only once did I actually see him celebrate the team's results.
When?
In 2012, when Boonen lined up Harelbeke, Flanders, Ghent and RoubaixThe evening of our last victory, we booked the restaurant in Ghent where we celebrated our victories. And that evening Patrick said to me: "Alessandro, tonight let's not think about anything and let's have fun, because in 30 years that I have been doing this job, something like this has never happened and we have to celebrate it". Otherwise it has always been someone who won the race and half an hour later was already thinking about the next one.
Never satisfied?
It's always been like this, almost to the point of looking for the flaw in the victoryHe always recorded all the races. On Mondays, he'd watch them again, and then during the day he'd call the people he wanted to point out something to. Maybe the team that had made a bad move at a certain point. When you lose, you see the mistake immediately, but when you win it is more difficult.There were moments with champions like Bettini and Boonen in which we won races even if the tactics were not perfect, however he has always sought this kind of perfection.
Did he have the same relationship with all his champions or were some more… sons than others?
In my opinion he had more or less the same way of relating to everyone. Maybe with Alaphilippe something moreJulian did everything here, he was born and raised with us. He ran for the Armée des Terres in France and practically no one paid attention to him. Patrick has always had a certain love for French riders. Alaphilippe, Chavanel, Cavagna, now Paul MagnierPartly because having French riders is important for the Tour and partly because maybe he sees inspiration in it, the imagination, something different from the Belgians.
He may have loved Alaphilippe, but in recent years he also treated him with uncommon harshness…
Patrick never gets on his nerves and he never says anything at randomMaybe he did it to Lefevere, though. he expressed his concepts. Perhaps the things that many thought, but that only he truly expressed to the fullest.This sometimes spurs the riders on and leads them to perform, sometimes not, it depends on the situation. When someone signed a contract with Patrick, they knew that from him he would have had everything, because Patrick he gives everything to his athletes. Including toughness in tense situations.
Was there a point, with the arrival of mega-budgets, when Patrick realized that making ends meet was becoming increasingly difficult?
We've always made careful choices. We've never had the biggest budgets in the world, though. the team always does so well that probably no one has ever asked themselves the questionWe did the best we could with what we had, without overdoing it. The entry of the Arab world into cycling has brought about a turning point, may have been the milestone that changed the international landscape and created imbalances. It forced us to work harder. We have fantastic sponsors, but it's clear that It's not easy to compete against teams that have a budget of that level.
Did you expect him to announce his retirement this early?
It threw me a bit. There was a plan for the change, so I expected it to happen more gradually.But maybe he was tired lately. And then, even if he's no longer the manager, he'll stay close to the team, which he's looked after and nurtured for 24 years. I imagine he won't abandon it just like that.
Who is Patrick Lefevere for you?
A master on how work with passion while maintaining professionalismHe taught me a way of life. I always say he belongs to a circle of champions who light up the game. Like Baggio or Maradona, a great artistOne of those characters with an above-average capacity for intuition, from whom it is good to try to learn as much as possible. That said, I haven't always agreed with himBut the decisions he involved me in were so shared that I felt they were mine too. Patrick has a great ability to delegate. He starts a process, lets it run with the others, and then comes back to put the finishing touches and sign off.
Will the team change without him?
Jurgen Foré was the one who identified him, chose him, and brought him onto the team. He didn't come from cycling because he wanted to give the team a more corporate feel. He has a different personality than Patrick and he knows very well that he cannot replace himHe will do his job like everyone else, trying to be the best version of himself. I'm convinced that he is the right person to keep thinking about this team and maybe have another 10 years ahead of us.
We asked you for a photo of the two of you together, why did you send us the one above?
I've always liked it. Usually in our photos we wear the team shirt, we are always in discussion with someone, with a badge attached to the neckThis is the only photo I have of him where we have a jacket on. It's the two of us, Patrick and AlessandroI don't know who took it, but it's an image I care about.
