They always are. Coaches like Renard, Luis Fernando Suárez, Queiroz and Halilhodzic change teams at every World Cup
Saudi Arabia’s surprise victory over Argentina has put Frenchman Hervé Renard, the Arab team’s coach, at the forefront of the World Cup. Renard is the last exponent of a very special caste, that of fortune coaches, guys with an undeniable human talent and a flair for languages, specialists in managing the most exotic teams in the final phase. His thing is to work in silence the four years that pass from one appointment to the next. Victory is the standings. His role in the group stage is to testify that football is a universal sport to the greater glory of FIFA.
They occupy a different bench each time and disappear until the next appointment, but by repeating they have become familiar faces, as essential at World Cup events as the fans who fill the stands with a Mexican hat and their country’s flag to celebrate the neck tied.
Hervé Renard has been known in Zambia as “the white magician” since he led his team to victory in the African Cup of Nations in 2012. Renard had previously served in Ghana and then went to Angola, leaving without pay after six months.
He ended up in Ivory Coast and later took charge of the Moroccan team, qualifying for the World Cup in Russia. Now he sits on the bench of Saudi Arabia from where he left Messi’s Argentina in the dust. With the look of a mature, elegant and imperturbable heartthrob, as if he cares nothing about being the main protagonist in a match that will go down in World Cup history, the Frenchman is experiencing an unexpected moment of glory in Qatar.
Colombian Luis Fernando Suárez Guzmán, coach of Costa Rica defeated by Spain, also knows the final stages of the World Cup very well. The current one is his third participation. He made his debut in 2006 and led Ecuador to the round of 16 in Germany and led Honduras in Brazil in 2014, failing to progress past the group stage.
Queiroz, Martino…
Mozambican Carlos Queiroz, who we now see on the Iranian bench, led South Africa in Korea-Japan in 2002 and Portugal in South Africa in 2010, although he also tried his luck in Colombia and Egypt.
Rosario’s Tata Martino now leads Mexico and is likely to determine Argentina’s fate in the group. In 2010 we saw him on the bench for Paraguay and he also directed the albiceleste.
In this World Cup in Qatar, however, the most classic of the classics are missing. Recent World Cups have particularly missed Serbian Bora Milutinovic, a regular in the league since his debut in 1986 at the helm of Mexico, which he led to the quarter-finals. Later he successively managed Costa Rica (1990), USA (1994), Nigeria (1998) and China (2002) and had time to work with the teams of Honduras, Jamaica and Iraq, where he retired
Bosnian Valid Halilhodzic is not far behind when it comes to adventurous spirit. He directed Ivory Coast (2010) and Algeria (2014) in the closing stages and qualified for Japan (2018) and Morocco (2022), but was sacked by both teams just two months before the opening game.
the predecessors
In this relationship, the Frenchman Henri Michel could not be missing, an expert in Francophonie: coach of France (Mexico, 1986), Cameroon (USA, 1994), Morocco (France, 1998) and Ivory Coast (Germany, 2006). He also led Guinea, Tunisia, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates.
Nor are we likely to see the perpetual smile of Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira next to a bench, with five appearances and a World Championship title behind him. He was the coach of that Kuwait that played the World Cup in Spain in San Mamés against England and threatened to retire in the Nuevo Zorrilla on the orders of the Emir’s brother who went to the field to demand from the referee that he France’s fourth goal. In 1990 he led the United Arab Emirates, before declaring himself champion in the United States with Brazil (1994). Saudi Arabia in 1998, Brazil again in 2006 and South Africa, playing at home, were his destinations as a coach, which did not prevent his CV from covering a range of clubs from all over the world.
Since 2002, Dutchman Guus Hiddink has been a national hero in South Korea, a team he led to the semi-finals of his World Cup. Before that, he directed the Netherlands in France (1998) and later coached Australia in Germany (2006). Real Madrid, Valencia, Betis, PSV and Chelsea, among others, have known the good work and personality of a coach who one day refused to play until they had removed a Nazi flag from the stands. He has ended his days as a coach on the bench of the Curaçao national team.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
