Toulouse (AFP)

To regain Ligue 1 a year after leaving it, Toulouse will have to win the round-trip barrage, Thursday and Sunday, against Nantes from Antoine Kombouaré, ephemeral coach of the TFC during this cursed 2019-2020 season, before d ' being sacked barely three months later.

Called on October 14, 2019 at the bedside of Toulouse to redress the bar after a failed start to the season and the dismissal of Alain Casanova, Antoine Kombouaré (57) had finally packed his bags 83 days later.

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His record?

Eleven losses in thirteen matches, including a series of ten consecutive defeats ended by elimination in the Coupe de France (0-1) against the fans of Saint-Hillaire (Nat. 2).

A fatal humiliation for Kanak, who landed the next day when he did not expect it.

"I was not allowed to finish my work, here I am given the opportunity to rectify the situation and I take it as a personal revenge", he had thus affirmed last February when Nantes called on him to revive to a team mired in a nightmarish streak of sixteen games without a win.

If Kombouare has still not digested this brutal sidelining, resentment is just as pervasive among Toulouse supporters who saw his first words as an affront on his arrival, especially when he had confessed "to follow L1 than to far "when the TFC was already in great difficulty in the standings.

Mocked for his conception of football, considered too physical, mocked for his passion for golf, where he was accused of spending more time than on the training grounds, the gap between him and the Toulouse supporters then continued to grow. dig until it leaves.

- "The ambition to go back up" -

Due to the closed session, there will be no heated reunions.

Kombouaré will also not meet its former president and majority shareholder, Olivier Sadran, with whom relations have also remained very fresh, but who since the descent into L2 acted, last summer, sold the club to the American investment fund. Red Bird Capital.

The objective is the same for Kombouaré as for the TFC: to play in Ligue 1 next season.

The biggest budget in Ligue 2 (27 million euros), Toulouse made this objective its mission at the start of the season, while maintaining the FCNA would automatically extend the contract of its current coach by two years.

"In difficulty, we have to show that we are men, great players: we have to put our heads right side up and start fighting again because two big matches await us" warned Kombouaré, who has already saved Dijon from relegation during these same dams, in 2018 against Lens.

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"Antoine is a friend, he probably knows the club well, but I too know Nantes by heart" smiled TFC coach Patrice Garande (60) when he was reminded that Yves Bertucci, Kombouaré's loyal assistant , was still part of the Toulouse staff until last February before joining him in Nantes.

"If Nantes is 18th, it is because they have weaknesses, it will be up to us to exploit them, and if you ask me if we can beat them I answer you a big yes", then added Garande before concluding: "We are an L1 club which plays in L2 and we have the ambition to bring TFC back to its place".

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Verdict Sunday night.

© 2021 AFP