So yesterday this dude Herve Renard kept popping up in my Twitter feed after that Saudi game, right? Got me wondering – where ELSE has this guy even coached? I mean, you see him bossing the Saudi Arabia team but obviously he’s gotta have a history somewhere.
First thing I did, obviously, googled “Herve Renard teams coached”. Got the basic wiki page but man, it felt kinda thin. Just the big national teams listed up top, nothing detailed. Needed to dig deeper.
Started punching in more specific searches: “Herve Renard all clubs”, “Renard coaching history”. Google kept throwing me mostly recent stuff. Annoying. Felt like I was just getting the highlight reel. Needed the whole dang resume.
Remembered a sports site database thing, went digging there. That’s where it got messy. Okay, cool, found Zambia – know he won the AFCON with them? Insane. Then Morocco – remember them in the World Cup? Yup, him. Then Saudi Arabia. But then… France Women’s team flashed by. Whoa, forgot he did that! But where was the CLUB stuff?
This was taking way longer than I thought. Pulled up a coffee at this point. Kept scrolling through this database. Started seeing stuff in Africa I never knew about. Zambia popped up again – actually coached them twice? Huh. Angola? Côte d’Ivoire? Makes sense, he’s like the Africa specialist guy.
But c’mon, surely he coached actual clubs before becoming King of International teams? Kept digging. Then… French stuff came up. Obscure. Really obscure. Like ‘Sochaux’ popped up. Remember them? Barely. Then… ‘Angers SCO’? Is that right? Had to double-check. Yup! And wait… ‘Cambridge United’?? In England? League Two? What? That felt wild. You picture this guy managing Saudi Arabia against Messi, and then before that, Cambridge United away at Grimsby? No way.
Even dug up some weird footnote mentions. Like ‘AS Cherbourg’ or something? Played there? Coached in the French lower leagues? How deep does this rabbit hole go?
My screen started looking like a conspiracy board trying to piece this guy’s path together. Felt kinda relieved to finally nail down the messy order. His CV’s all over the place! Here’s the full crazy list I put together:
- AS Cherbourg (as a player-coach! France, early days)
- Cambridge United (England, League Two. Mind blown.)
- AS Cherbourg (proper coach gig this time)
- Shanghai Cosco (Assistant in China? Random)
- Cambridge United (Second spell! They loved him)
- Nei Mongol Hasa (Another team in China? Seriously?)
- Angers SCO (Managing in France! Getting serious)
- Valladolid (Shot in Spain)
- Souffelweyersheim (French lower leagues again)
- AS Cherbourg (Back AGAIN? This club keeps popping up)
- USM Alger (Finally Africa!)
- Zambia (First national team! Lead up to winning AFCON)
- Angola
- USM Alger
- Sochaux (Back managing in France)
- Zambia (Went BACK and won AFCON with them? Legend move)
- Sochaux (Second spell – didn’t end well)
- Côte d’Ivoire (Won AFCON! Made it his specialty)
- Lille OSC (Big French club, crashed hard)
- Morocco (World Cup magic!)
- France Women
- Saudi Arabia (Where he’s tearing it up now against giants)
- France Women U-23 (And still doing this too?)
(Return after Zambia!)
(Big jump!)
Took me longer than expected to track all that down, especially those early years bouncing between France and China and England. The guy’s been absolutely everywhere, managing in leagues I didn’t even know existed. Makes his success now kinda crazy impressive.
