In one weekend, Toulouse achieved a rare double performance: losing to a fifth division team and firing a second coach in three months. Appointed mid-October 2019 at the head of a losing Toulouse team, Antoine Kombouaré has already been thanked by the club the day after a humiliating elimination in the Coupe de France, Saturday January 4, against Saint-Pryvé Saint-Hilaire (1 -0), a modest National 2 team.
The story between the former PSG coach and the Pink City seemed to have started well, however. First match on October 19, first victory against Lille (2-1). Eleven days later, Toulouse signs a new victory against Niort (1-2) in 16es of the League Cup final.
However, since these encouraging beginnings, nothing has been for Antoine Kombouaré's team. Kanak leaves office with a dismal loss of ten losses in a row in all competitions, the worst streak in club history.
The nomination of the former defender of FC Nantes and PSG had not frankly reassured the supporters, worried about his reputation as a coach betting a lot on aggressiveness and state of mind. His first appearance, to say the least, at a press conference had not helped.
" I don't know if we have a big calendar, I haven't looked at it. I just know that we’re playing Lille this weekend. After, I think we're going to Rennes "He said before conceding to have" very little following Ligue 1 ".
A lunar communication during which Kombouaré distinguished himself by asking his players to " rediscover the taste ofe put on tampons ". What attracts some mockery wondering if he was going to train Toulouse football club or his brilliant rugby counterpart at Stade Toulouse.
Can someone tell Kombouaré that he trains the football club and not rugby? #teamlens #tfc https://t.co/gPBNENy8TF
Olivier Sadran, little present president
Last in Ligue 1 after 19 days, the Toulousains display a disastrous record with only twelve points, three more than at the 9e day after which Alain Casanova left the club.
Already a coach from 2008 to 2015, the return of the former goalkeeper in June 2018 should have helped to go up the slope after a complicated 2017-2018 season, during which the Toulousains had avoided relegation, in extremis, by winning the jump-off against AC Ajaccio. A bet that ultimately proved to be a loser for club president Olivier Sadran: the Violets finished in sixteenth place last season.
For several years, the investment of the one that some saw as the "New Aulas" – the president of Olympique lyonnais – seems to go downhill, exasperating some of the supporters.
Saturday, December 14, a handful of ultras had thus tried to arrest their president at the end of a lost match against Reims (0-1). Yesterday, the meeting was also interrupted for ten minutes because of smoke jets and an attempt to intrude on the lawn of some of the Toulouse supporters.
In a very busy schedule for this businessman at the head of Newrest, a catering company present in 49 countries, the TFC seems to occupy only a minimal place. " There is no relationship. We don't see it at all anymore. The only one who talks with us is Jean-François Soucasse (General manager). I deplore it. By coming to the manager-supporter meetings, Olivier Sadran would perhaps be a little less disconnected from the situation ”, was sorry Alexandre, ultra of the "Indians", questioned last summer by the site lesviolets.com.
Seventeenth best training center in Europe
Seventeenth in Ligue 1 in 2016, 13e in 2017, 18e in 2018 then 16e in 2019. The fourth most populous city in France fights regularly to avoid relegation, while its training center is recognized as one of the best in France.
Last year, his U19 reached the final of the Gambardella Cup, against Saint-Etienne, against which the "Pitchouns" had bowed (0-2). In October, Toulouse was even classified by the annual report of the Football Observatory (CIES) as the sixth best training club in France and the seventeenth in Europe, tied with Bayern Munich.
A negative episode marked the club last season. After four convincing months in the purple jersey, Jean-Clair Todibo, one of the great hopes from this formation, joined FC Barcelona on January 31, 2019 … for the modest sum of one million euros excluding bonuses. Todibo, who made his professional debut on August 19, 2018, had refused to extend his contract with his training club.
If the TFC does not always manage to keep its young, supporters can still keep some hope. Toulouse has already successfully completed a spectacular maintenance operation in the spring of 2016, while the club was ten points behind ten days before the end of the championship.
A comeback driven by another coach with grip, the superstitious Pascal Dupraz. To motivate his men on the last day of Ligue 1 and win on the wire 3-2 against Angers, the Savoyard coach had launched into a speech passed to posterity:
" Now is the time to do it, not tomorrow or yesterday. It is now. There is only more to eat : the cover is set. "
In Toulouse to find this time the right man again.
