Herve Renard.. The story of the French rooster that flew in the Saudi green to the sixth World Cup

He succeeded in restoring the prestige of the Saudi national team in the middle of Asia, and established a strong team, and developed a lot in the performance of the players, which was seen on the field in the World Cup qualifiers that ended recently. While Al-Akhdar was suffering before, under the leadership of Argentine Antonio Pizzi, and it was eliminated from the World Cup Russia 2018 from the group stage with a single victory over the Egyptian team, and then exited from the round of 16 in the Asian Nations Championship UAE 2019, at the hands of Japan, he added a lot to Saudi football, which also added a lot to its training record, and it was the fruit of this work, which was based on a strong structure. Saudi Arabia is present among the world’s top teams in the Qatar World Cup for the sixth time in its history, leading its most difficult group, after 94, 98, 2002, 2006, 2018.

It is Hervé Renard, who was born in Les Bains, France, on September 30, 1968. He began his football career as a defender with Cannes, before moving to play for Vallauris club and then Draguignan, who continued with it from 1983 to 1998.

Renard started his coaching career early with SC Draguignan in 1999 and until 2001, then worked as an assistant coach for the Chinese Guizhou Renhe with Claude Leroy from 2002 to 2003, then moved to Cambridge United in 2004, then technical director of Da Nam Dinh Club in 2004, but soon he left it after several months, to take over the technical management of Cherbourg Club from 2005 to 2007.

He became famous when he became an assistant to Claude Leroy for the second time, this time with the Ghana national team.

In May 2008 he was appointed technical director of the Zambia national team, and in the 2010 African Cup he led the team to the quarter-finals for the first time after 14 years, but he left Zambia in April 2010 just two months before the expiration of his contract, and two days after the date of his resignation, Renard signed a contract to supervise the Angolan national team, but resigned in October 2010 and was replaced by Zika Amaral.

In January 2011, Renard reached an agreement with the Algerian Federation to take over it’s technical leadership, and on October 22, 2011 the Zambia national team announced that it had signed a new contract with Herve Renard for only one year, at which time he led the team to its first coronation in the 2012 African Cup of Nations. The victory of the team coincided with the accident in which the Zambia national football team plane crashed just miles from the final site in Gabon.

In May 2012, Chishimba Kamwele, the Zambian Minister of Sports, announced his desire to sign Renard to a new contract with the national team before the end of the old contract. Zambia was eliminated from the group stage of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, when Renard admitted that he bears full responsibility for this mistake, but he returned to the controversy again after criticizing CAF for not allowing the 2012-winning Zambian team to compete for the 2013 Confederations Cup.

Renard terminated his contract with the Zambia national team and issued a statement confirming that he had signed a new contract in October 2013 with French Sochaux.

In October 2013, Renard was officially announced as the coach of Sochaux, which was active in the French Ligue 1, and in April 2014 Renard hinted at the possibility of his supervision of coaching the Moroccan national team.

Sochaux suffered a lot in the league, and it was fighting a battle to stay, and in 2014, Sochaux failed to avoid relegation, which prompted Hervey to submit his resignation, and in July 2014, Renard was appointed coach of the Ivory Coast national team, he participated in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations and was able to win it with them to became the first coach to win two titles in the African Cup of Nations with two different teams.

Renard moved to coach Lille in May 2015, and on November 11 of the same year he was sacked due to poor results, especially as the team collected only 13 points from 13 league matches.

In February 2016, Renard contracted with the Moroccan national team, and in 2017, he achieved a historic achievement by qualifying for the World Cup in Russia 2018 after an absence of 20 years, and later that month, he signed a new contract until 2022, and after the surprise exclusion of the Moroccan team against the Benin team by penalty kicks during the African Nations Cup 2019, Hervey announced his resignation as coach of the Lions on July 21 of the same year.

In late July 2019, the Saudi Federation announced the signing of a contract with Renard to be the first French coach to supervise the leadership of Al-Akhdar, and he played his first match with the Saudi national team on September 10, 2019 against the Yemeni team in the framework of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers and ended in a positive 2-2 draw, Renard also led the Saudi team in Gulf 24, and it succeeded in overcoming the first round with six points after a resounding fall in the opening round against the Kuwaiti team 3-1, before making up for it in the next two rounds to pass to the second round with six points, where the Qatari team faced the host of the tournament and managed to overthrow it with a clean goal. It qualified for the final round in order to meet the pre-qualified Bahrain team at the expense of its Iraqi counterpart on penalties, but lost the final against Bahrain, which won a historic title.

Renard has distinguished numbers with the Saudi Green since taking over the job in July 2019. We cannot deny that the Saudi team is the best station for French coach Renard in terms of victories. The Frenchman has a success rate of 71.4% in winning with the Green, and he did not lose in the final stage of the World Cup qualifiers. Only one match so far, against Japan 0/2. Despite his success in qualifying with Morocco to the 2018 World Cup after a long absence, Renard has a victory rate with the Atlas Lions of 53.4%, winning 23 matches, drawing 9, and losing 11 in 43 matches, while he has a win rate of 57% with Ivory Coast, winning 8 matches, 3 draws and 3 defeats in 14 international matches, in addition to 47.8% with Zambia in 23 matches, which confirms that his career with Saudi Green is the most successful till now.

Achievements:

Zambia
Winning the 2012 African Nations Cup.

Cosava cup win 2013.

Ivory Coast
Winning the 2015 African Cup of Nations.

Morocco
Reaching the quarter-finals of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.
Qualification for the World Cup 2018.

Saudi Arabia
24th Arabian Gulf Cup runner-up.
Qualification for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022