Rudi Garcia, here during a large success (4-1) in October against Monaco, which symbolizes the rise of OL in Ligue 1. -
Laurent Cipriani / AP / SIPA
Before welcoming FC Metz on Sunday (9 p.m.), OL formalized last week its honorary title of autumn champion, synonymous with hope of first crowning in Ligue 1 for 13 years.
After struggling for a year to find an eleven type and a stable system, Rudi Garcia is no stranger to the excellent Lyon dynamic (10 wins and 3 draws over the last 13 days).
In view of his end of adventures at Losc, but especially at AS Roma and OM, the current coach of OL, whose contract is concluded next June, does not appear to be the last obvious solution in Lyon for next season.
After having had to credit Claude Puel with the first semi-final of the Champions League in the club's history in 2010, will OL supporters celebrate Rudi Garcia in May in the event of their 8th league title? France to say the least unexpected?
The scenario would be funny, while the former Marseille coach was still scolded by Lyon supporters in March, during the last two traces of a crowded OL Park.
The Covid-19 then went through there and Rudi Garcia experienced almost everything: a European non-qualification that looked like a sports crash but also a euphoric place in the semifinals of the Final 8 of the C1, then a 14th place in October in L1, before becoming autumn champion last week.
So many roller coasters making the future in Lyon of Rudi Garcia uncertain beyond June 30, 2021, the date of the end of his current contract.
From Hazard to Cherki, is Rudi Garcia "a trainer at heart"?
via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/nddYx6JZj0
- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) February 12, 2020
A final in the Europa League with OM… then a fiasco the following year
Even if OL remain on an infernal series of 10 wins and 3 draws for three months, before hosting Metz on Sunday (9 p.m.), Jean-Michel Aulas and Juninho are they afraid of extending Rudi Garcia because of his last seasons systematically missed at Losc, AS Roma, then OM?
Small inventory of his three previous experiences as a coach, his three longest in the elite:
In Lille, Rudi Garcia goes on five seasons from 2008 to 2013, with a false start in 2009. He becomes champion of France and winner of the Coupe de France in 2011, qualifies Losc twice in the Champions League and twice in the Europa League .
But he concluded 2012-2013 with his worst ranking in the North (6th), without European qualification.
At AS Roma (2013-2016), he broke a record with ten straight wins in Serie A and hoisted the club to second place behind Juventus for his first two seasons.
He was dismissed in January 2016, when Roma were 5th in the league, with only one victory in their last ten games and an elimination in the Italian Cup against a Serie B club.
At OM, he qualified the club in the Europa League in 2017 (5th in L1) then in 2018 (4th), season during which he achieved a European epic, until the final in Lyon against Atlético de Madrid (0- 3).
The third season (2018-2019) is launched with his choice to recruit Kevin Strootman at a gold price (25 million euros transfer, 500,000 euros gross monthly salary), and completed with a disastrous course in the Europa League (a only point taken), then in 5th place in L1, without European qualification.
The adventure therefore ends in May 2019, two years before the end of his contract.
So, do the stories always end badly with Rudi Garcia, and this from the third season if we are to believe the previous ones in Rome and Marseille?
Advisor to President Seydoux during Rudi Garcia's Lille years, Jean-Michel Vandamme has his ideas on the issue.
There is no absolute truth or arithmetic in football.
At Losc, we had four and a half wonderful years with Rudi and the last six more difficult months.
After the title of 2011, we exploded the budget by multiplying by three the salaries of the guys.
There, we could no longer project together because we were no longer able, at the club, to provide Rudi with a team capable of reaching the heights as he wished.
We spoke with honesty and we left by mutual agreement at the end of the fifth season.
"
"The workout routine could be boring"
His methods and his speech do not they still wear out the players?
"No, he has a lot of character but he is not authoritarian like a Louis van Gaal," says Jean-Michel Vandamme.
When I especially see the context he lived in Marseille, I think he was also fed up, it does not come only from the club.
"For Gianni Bruno, Losc striker from 2011 to 2013 with Rudi Garcia, weariness could be elsewhere with the 56-year-old coach:" As much as I found his requirements normal, the routine of his training could be boring, always with tactics on Thursday and reduced play on the eve of a match, perhaps out of superstition.
"
Now at Zulte-Waregem, the Belgian striker continues: “It is true that it often ends in a complicated way for Rudi in his previous clubs.
I was surprised that he put executives like Payet against OM, because one of his strengths in Lille was to rely on a council of wise men [with Mavuba, Balmont, Chedjou…].
"
Rudi Garcia during his Lille period, here in September 2012 alongside the left side trained at Losc Lucas Digne.
- FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP
At OL, Garcia pampers his executives
In Lyon, Rudi Garcia puts his star Memphis Depay in the best conditions and he does everything to protect Houssem Aouar after the club sanctioned him in November in Angers.
His coup was for Marcelo, whom he supported in his open conflict with the Bad Gones last season, even managing to improbably revive the Brazilian defender.
Successful human management which pleads in favor of the Lyon coach, as well as the stabilization of his 4-3-3 with the Depay-Toko Ekambi-Kadewere triplet in front, after much trial and error for a year.
However, coach Rudi does not have the same broad powers as OM regarding recruitment, and the arrivals of key players like Bruno Guimaraes and especially Lucas Paqueta, stamped Juninho, also allowed OL to see his ambitions grow in Ligue 1.
"If we love each other, we will stay together"
Champion of France in 1999 with Bordeaux, and on the bench of the Girondins for six years (from 1997 to 2003), Elie Baup delivers a more general observation: “It is difficult for a coach to work over time today.
Rudi Garcia may have been debating at OM and then at OL, but I see him facing up to it, and remaining at a high level of results without wearing out.
"
However, the scenario of an Alain Perrin author of a double L1-Coupe de France, but thanked by Jean-Michel Aulas in 2008, is not to be excluded.
"It would seem to me really too big that Rudi is dismissed at the end of the season by being champion", slips Gianni Bruno.
"No need for Pacs or marriage contract, if we love each other, we will stay together", had fun in December on RMC Sport Rudi Garcia, about his undecided future in Lyon.
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