From cleaner to stardom: The magic touch of the underrated coach

By Matthew Ma

Football is arguably one of the best sports in the world. From Africa to Asia and Europe, football has effectively evolved into the top game on this planet. The USA and Australia are probably the only countries left in the world where soccer is not one of the top three most popular sports. In soccer, players often take much publicity and limelight, but managers do not always get the credit they deserve. Players last longer in a team but managers do not when teams perform poorly. They are sacked and replaced by new ones. Football managers are just as crucial to the success of a football club. They are responsible for what happens on and off the pitch and behind every team. The game cannot be what it is without them. Throughout history, soccer has seen countless head coaches. However, only a few have left their mark on the beautiful game. Manchester United icon Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsenal legend Arsene Wenger have cemented a legacy for what they did in their managerial careers. Another iconic coach is Jose Mourinho, whose career took off after leading Portugal giants Porto to an unlikely Champions League triumph in 2004. Today, there are underrated managers who get overshadowed by important names or gain the misfortune of coaching for small or little-known teams. Here, we look at one of the most underrated managers in world football.

One of the most underrated coaches is Herve Jean-Marie Roger Renard. Born on 30 September 1968 in Aix-les-Bains, Renard played as a defender for French sides AS Cannes, Stade de Vallauris, and SC Draguignan in a playing career from 1983 to 1998. After retiring as a professional player, he worked at Draguignan as a cleaner, eventually setting up his own cleaning company. Renard managed several clubs in Europe and Asia before accepting the Zambia job. In 2008, he was appointed manager of the Zambia national team. At the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, he led Zambia to the quarterfinals for the first time in 14 years. But Renard left his duties as the Zambia manager in 2010 with only two months remaining on his contract. Two days later, he accepted to become the manager of Angola but resigned from his position as Angola manager in October 2010. In October 2011, Renard returned as the coach of Zambia on a one-year contract. He led the team to their first victory in the African Cup of Nations in 2012. After Zambia got eliminated from the group stages of the 2013 African Cup of Nations, the Football Association of Zambia relieved Renard of his duties as the coach of the Zambia National team. But in 2015, the Ivory Coast football federation appointed Renard as their manager. He won the African Cup of Nations with Ivory Coast, becoming the first coach to win two Africa Cup of Nations with different countries. He left Ivory Coast in 2016, but in February of that same year, the Moroccan FA appointed Renard national team coach. On November 2017, he qualified Morocco for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, their first since 1998. After losing to Iran 1 – 0 and Portugal 1 – 0 in 2018, Morocco produced a superb display to draw 2-2 with Spain. In July 2019, when Moroccan could not make it to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, Renard took responsibility for the exit and resigned a few days later. Later in July 2019, he became the manager of Saudi Arabia, the first Frenchman to do so. In March 2022, Renard led Saudi Arabia to qualification for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In the process became the foreign-born manager with the most wins (18) in the history of Saudi football. On 22 November 2022, Renard led Saudi Arabia to its first-ever World Cup opening match victory in a historic 2–1 upset victory over deeply favored Argentina.

It is not every day you come back to beat World Cup favorites Argentina. So, what sort of manager is needed to mastermind such an unbelievable result? He is an underrated manager who is not known globally but suddenly became a world hero. Saudi Arabia had never before won their first match at a World Cup. In 2002, they suffered a humiliating 8-0 defeat by Germany and a 5-0 loss to Russia in 2018. On November 22, 2022, the Saudi Arabia team fell behind to an early Lionel Messi penalty. But Leonard fought back with a rousing team talk at halftime to seal a 2-1 victory over the two-time world champions. That team talk at halftime sparked a successful counterattack against Argentina. While there are several talking points to the game, including three disallowed goals, Saudi Arabia’s coach, Herve Renard, has won a lot of admiration from fans. Many believe his success against Argentina underlines his skillful use of mind games. According to the Saudi captain, Renard is not only a technical adviser; he is also a powerful motivator. In his words: He is a crazy coach who gave them instructions and motivated them strongly during halftime. He stressed the importance of that game to the players on the field. Renard is the type of manager that every country desire to have as a coach.

Back to home soil, Nigerian Football Federation has had a history of sacking coaches before a major tournament. More often than not, the changing of coaches has turned out not to have the desired effect. 1994 is widely accepted as the turning point in Nigerian football as the Eagles won the AFCON trophy and performed superbly at their first-ever World Cup appearance that year. Since 1994, the first time Nigeria substituted its national team coach just before a major international tournament was in late 1999 when NFF assigned Jo Bonfrere ahead of the 2000 AFCON co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana. The first competitive game of Bonfrere Jo after his reappointment as the head coach was in the group stage of the AFCON as Nigeria defeated Tunisia 4-2. The Dutchman went on to lead the Super Eagles to the finals before eventually losing to penalties to Cameroon. After Bonfrere, the late Shuaibu Amodu took over as the Super Eagles head coach and qualified the nation for the 2002 AFCON and World Cup tournaments. NFF sacked Amodu after Nigeria finished third in the 2002 AFCON ahead of the World Cup that same year. Festus Onigbinde was appointed as the man to lead the team to Korea/Japan in 2002, with Nigeria seeking to continue the record of making it to the knockout stage of every World Cup tournament they played. However, the team did not do any better than it would have under Amodu, as Nigeria finished bottom of the group with only a point and a goal. If sacking Amodu in 2002 ahead of the World Cup was unfair, doing so again in 2010 must-have stung the late coach. Nigeria failed to go past the quarter-final of the 2008 AFCON for the first time since 1982, with Berti Vogts as the manager and Amodu hired as his replacement to pick up the scraps and qualify the nation for the 2010 AFCON and World Cup tournaments. Amodu successfully qualified Nigeria for both tournaments without losing a single game and even took Nigeria further than Vogts did at the AFCON as the Super Eagles finished third in the 2010 tournament. Again, the NFF felt that Amodu was not fit to lead Nigeria to the World Cup, despite his relative success while in charge, and sacked him just a few months into the tournament, with Lars Lagerback coming in as his replacement. Nigeria appointed Lagerback hoping the Swede would qualify the team for at least the knockout stage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Unfortunately, the Super Eagles failed to qualify out of a group with Argentina, Greece, and South Korea. This display is no worse than what they did under Amodu had he been allowed to lead the team to the tournament.

If Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) sacks a coach before a tournament, Nigerians should not expect a miracle from a new coach who would take over the team. No coach can fully implement his ideas with one or two friendly matches before the AFCON. Jo Bonfrere is the only exception in history where every appointment of a new coach before a major tournament has failed. The Dutchman took half of his famous 1996 Atlanta squad to AFCON 2000. It is little surprise that he guided the team to a good outing within the short time he had to prepare. Sacking Rohr eventually may be the right decision for the national team to move forward but doing so with the AFCON very close proved to be the wrong decision historically. If they had sacked him after the AFCON, ten months would be enough time for a new coach to qualify and lead Nigeria to a good outing at the World Cup in November next year.

What is the ultimate underdog story behind Renard and Saudi Arabia’s rise to stardom? After a disappointing spell as Morocco’s head coach – which saw the north African side eliminated in the 2018 World Cup group stages – Renard joined the Saudi Arabia National team in 2019. Since his appointment, the national side has moved up from 70th to 51st in the FIFA world rankings and topped their recent World Cup qualifying group that included Japan and Australia. After that success, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) announced that Renard had signed an extension to his current deal until 2027. The country is already thinking about the longevity, solidification, stability, prolongation, and consistency of its team to stardom. Saudi Arabia is known to open their hearts and purse to their World Cup goal-scorers. 

Rev. Ma, S.J, is a Jesuit Catholic priest and doctoral student in public and social policy at St. Louis University in the state of Missouri, US