[Observation] The rise of French Ligue 1 foreign coaches, can the top four be won by "foreign coaches"?

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Wang Qinbo

The top three Ligue 1 places have been generated in advance this season, and the quota for direct access to the Champions League has been set. The only suspense is the runner-up battle between Marseille (currently second) and Monaco (third). In addition, Nice, Lille and Strasbourg have 57 points together and will compete for fourth place in the league in the last round.

There is also an intriguing suspense behind this competition: Will the first time that the top four teams in the standings will be coached by foreign coaches? The 2024-25 season can be regarded as a year when foreign coaches fully blossomed in Ligue 1. Espanyol Enrique led Paris to win the championship easily and reached the French Cup final. More importantly, he led the team to reach the Champions League final through a two-round knockout match (Paris entered the Champions League final in the 2019-20 season. Due to the epidemic, the Champions League quarter-finals and semi-finals were single-game finals). Including the group stage, Paris defeated Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal in succession, sweeping the Premier League semi-finals.

In Marseille, although Italian Dezelby is often at the center of controversy due to his personality, it is undeniable that he has helped the club return to the Champions League, which is an important goal. Dezelby emphasized that this achievement is hard-won: Marseille has only entered the top three of Ligue 1 three times in the past decade, and even ranked eighth last season. And all the three first three happened to be completed by foreign coaches - Boas in the 2019-20 season, Sanbaoli in the 2021-22 season and Tudor in the 2022-23 season. In Monaco, Austrian Huttle started a strong start in the second season in coaching, but suffered a serious decline in the middle and even faced pressure to be dismissed. The key signings in the winter window worked, Danish striker Bireth emerged, the team regained its strength, and finally locked in the Champions League qualification one round ahead of schedule and returned to the top three.

This is the second time in Ligue 1 history that the top three are all coached by foreign coaches. The last time happened in the 2021-22 season: At that time, the Paris coach was Pochettino (Argentina), Marseille was Sanbaoli (Argentina), and Monaco was coached by Belgian Clement.

The local coach with the most outstanding results in Ligue 1 in recent years is Galter. He led Lille to a surprise championship in the 2020-21 season, and then brought Paris Saint-Germain to the Ligue 1 championship in the 2022-23 season. But in theory, he should have good coaching prospects, but now he has "hard to go home", which is related to the racial discrimination allegations he broke out during his coaching Nice in the 2021-22 season. Although he won the lawsuit, his image was damaged. In addition, many teams in Ligue 1 were plagued by problems. Galge had withdrawn from at least two negotiations that had already started and has not yet found a suitable opportunity to return.

Currently, there are only two local coaches, Nice coach Ace and Lille coach Genesio, who are considered representatives. Ace is considered an excellent team builder and tactical theorist. He served as a technical commentator for Team News during the 2022 World Cup and was widely praised. Genesio led the team to win a row against Mourinho (qualification), Ancelotti and Simeone in the 2024-25 Champions League, which is a rare victory over the head coaches of the "Four Famous Coaches" (including Manchester City who defeated Guardiola in the past when coaching Lyon).

But they are now facing the challenge of an "unnamed" foreign coach: Strasbourg coach, Englishman Rosenier. If Nice and Lille make another mistake, Strasbourg will historically rank among the top four - meaning that the top four in Ligue 1 will be coached by all foreign coaches for the first time.

It is particularly worth mentioning that Strasbourg's background is completely different from that of Paris, Marseille and Monaco. As the Chelsea satellite team, BlueCo Group positioned it as a youth training incubation platform, and the team consists of almost young players from all over the world. Rosenier was completely unknown before. He only served as an assistant coach for Coku and Rooney in Derby County. His independent coaching experience was only one and a half years old for the English Championship. The highest honor was the best coach for the 2023-24 season.

However, this baby soldier team led by the Englishman played the most passionate football in the French Ligue 1. They were once sluggish in the middle of the season, but Rosenier adjusted his tactics in time and gradually attached importance to defensive details. In the end, Strasbourg became a team that caused headaches for all teams. In the past month, Strasbourg fans who have dreams of the Champions League are more worried about not whether they can enter the top four, but whether BlueCo Group will "order" to avoid UEFA Champions League seats to avoid qualification conflicts with Chelsea.

However, it is not accurate to say that this is a season where foreign coaches fully conquered Ligue 1 - there are also foreign coaches in the relegation zone. Saint-Etienne invited Norwegian Hornelan to coach in the middle of the season, a choice that was puzzling. This jun has never coached the five major leagues before, and only led Bran from the Norwegian League to the top league and won the runner-up, and his coaching experience at Rosenberg was regarded as a crushing defeat. If Saint-Etienne cannot surpass Le Havre in the last round, someone will lead the team to relegate in the season when foreign coaches play Kei, which is also a comfort to local coaches.