The start of winter is tough for football coaches. As usual. After Stéphane Jobard, thanked at the beginning of November by Dijon, red lantern of Ligue 1, then Patrick Vieira, sacked on December 4 by the leaders of OGC Nice following a new setback for the team in the Europa League, against Bayer Leverkusen (2-3), it is the turn of Christian Gourcuff, the coach of FC Nantes, to be removed from office.
His dismissal was formalized Tuesday after a series of poor results, crowned by a 4-0 rout on Sunday against Strasbourg. It will be up to his deputy, Patrick Collot, 53, to act as interim until the winter break.
Christian Gourcuff, 65, arrived in Nantes in early August 2019. The previous coach, Vahid Halilhodzic, in conflict with his leaders, then preferred to leave his post precipitously, nine days before the resumption of the French championship.
Without a post since his departure two months earlier from Qatari club Al-Gharafa, after an experience in Rennes that had ended badly, the Breton technician had not hesitated long after the call of the Nantes president, Waldemar Kita, on August 7.
However, he had initially signed a contract for only one year, with the idea of finishing, whatever happens, his coaching career at Nantes.
“You have to detach the problem from me”
Today, FC Nantes is not in a totally catastrophic situation. Not yet. But not far anyway: the club is in fourteenth place (out of twenty) in Ligue 1 and is only three points ahead of Strasbourg, seventeenth and virtual barrage for a descent in Ligue 2.
Above all, the bad results accumulated (only three victories in thirteen days of the championship) and the current no longer seemed to pass between the coach and the players.
“When we see the performance of the team, we can wonder, said the technician on Sunday after the match lost against Strasbourg. Some players are not at their level. You have to detach the problem from me. It is the club’s problem, the club’s future that is at stake. “
“If I don’t suit the situation, that’s okay”, added Christian Gourcuff, recalling that he had come to Nantes “To lend a hand and do [du] best possible ”.
With this new change of coach, FC Nantes version Waldemar Kita is in his fifteenth coach in the space of thirteen years. Since its return to Ligue 1 in 2013, the club has never really managed to show convincing results and, above all, constant.
