Latest news with #PierreSage
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pierre Sage the lading candidate to take charge at Lens
Pierre Sage is now the leading candidate to take charge at RC Lens, according to a report from Foot Mercato. Lens have been without a manager since the final day of the Ligue 1 season, when Will Still shocked journalists by announcing his departure after just one season at the helm. He has since taken the job at Southampton. Advertisement That was almost two weeks ago, and whilst Lens are yet to name Still's successor, they are nearing an appointment as talks with candidates continue. Foot Mercato understands that Sage, out of a job since leaving Olympique Lyonnais at the start of the year, is the leading candidate. However, there are still other possibilities, including Yannick Cahuzac and Luís Castro. The latter excelled with USL Dunkerque last season, both in Ligue 2 and in the Coupe de France. He is also a target for FC Nantes, however, neither side are willing to pay the €2m compensation fee demanded by Dunkerque. GFFN | Luke Entwistle
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
🗞 La Quotidienne: Sage in hot water, new signing at Bayern!
Pierre Sage's return is on the right track. The former OL coach could soon join RC Lens. Click here for more information. Champions with Al-Ittihad, Karim Benzema and Laurent Blanc both feature in the team of the season for the Saudi Pro League. More details here. A major transfer was made official this Thursday in Germany! Bayern Munich announces the free arrival of German international Jonathan Tah. More details here. It's one of the most uncertain cases at the start of the transfer window. Where will Florian Wirtz sign? Reportedly close to Liverpool, the German international is also being pursued by Real Madrid, who are not giving up. More details here. This Thursday, Algeria's coach, Vladimir Petković, unveiled his list of 29 players selected for the upcoming matches against Rwanda (June 5) and Sweden (June 10). Two OM players have been called up. More details here. This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here. 📸 Lars Baron - 2025 Getty Images
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Nantes consider parting ways with Antoine Kombouaré
FC Nantes once again secured their safety in Ligue 1, but once again, they did it the hard way. Their safety was ensured on the final day of the season thanks to a 3-0 win over already-relegated Montpellier HSC. The three points saw Les Canaris jump to 13th, however, they also finish just three points ahead of 16th-placed Stade de Reims, who will compete in the relegation play-off later this month. At best, it has been another middling season, and L'Équipe understands that Nantes plan to part ways with manager Antoine Kombouaré. The club's management wished to do the same back in December, too, but could not find a suitable replacemnt. However, Kombouaré is now close to the exit door at Nantes. Les Canaris are already lining up replacements, according to L'Équipe. Pierre Sage, out of work since leaving Olympique Lyonnais earlier this season, is a target, as is Luis Castro, who failed to bring USL Dunkerque up to Ligue 1. GFFN | Luke Entwistle
New York Times
17-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Pierre Sage interview: Lyon sacking, working with Textor and Cherki's talent
Pierre Sage pops onto the Zoom screen from a ski lodge in France's Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, close to the border with Italy. He has been enjoying some quality family time after he was dismissed from his position as Lyon head coach at the end of January. It was the 45-year-old's first managerial role in senior football, and his first sacking in what is a notoriously brutal industry, but the experience has only left him hungry for more. Advertisement Sage, who will have a close eye on his former side's Europa League second-leg match at Manchester United tonight (Thursday), is already plotting his next move. 'I'm now ready for a new project,' he tells The Athletic. 'I want to begin next season either in France or elsewhere in Europe, ideally in the big five (leagues). My dream is to work in England because I think it's the best country and the best league, the Championship is a good league too. 'My second job will perhaps be the most important. I think it was Jose Mourinho who said you become a coach when you are fired the first time. 'It was difficult to lose my job, but the most difficult thing was to leave Lyon because it's my club, my town.' Sage first joined Lyon's academy as a youth coach in 2019, before spending a period acting as former Newcastle United defender Habib Beye's assistant at Red Star in Paris. He later returned to Lyon to head up their academy in the summer of 2023. Last season, with Lyon bottom of Ligue 1 following the short-lived reigns of Laurent Blanc, who was sacked in September, and Italian Fabio Grosso, who lasted just seven matches and was on the receiving end of a shocking attack on Lyon's bus from Marseille fans at the end of October, Sage was asked to steady the ship. He was initially handed the job as a caretaker but was hired on a permanent basis in the summer after overseeing a remarkable turnaround that took Lyon to sixth, securing qualification for the Europa League. They also reached the final of the Coupe de France, where they lost 2-1 against Paris Saint-Germain. Sage lost his first two games in charge but a 3-0 victory at home to Toulouse in December 2023 kickstarted their revival and, bolstered by January signings such as Nemanja Matic and Said Benrahma (initially on loan), they amassed 46 points from 22 league games, including a dramatic 4-3 win against Brest and a 3-2 victory over Monaco, before edging a 4-3 thriller in Lille. 'We were last and we finished sixth for one minute in the season because we scored a penalty in the last minute of stoppage time of the last game,' he says. 'It was crazy; Netflix can buy the rights.' After being heavily backed in the summer transfer window, Sage had Lyon in contention for a Champions League spot in Ligue 1 and led them to a sixth-placed finish in the 36-team Europa League table, guaranteeing a round-of-16 spot. However, a poor run of results in January, which included an embarrassing Coupe de France exit to amateur side Bourgoin-Jallieu, who play in the fifth tier of French football, led to Lyon's American owner John Textor calling an end to Sage's time in charge. At that stage, Lyon were sixth in Ligue 1. Advertisement Sage was replaced three days later by Paulo Fonseca. Explaining his decision, Textor told Canal Plus he did not feel confident Lyon could reach the Champions League under Sage. Asked how he felt about his dismissal, Sage says he is grateful to Textor for giving him the opportunity and insists there is no resentment — but he does believe Lyon were in line to achieve their objective of qualifying for the Champions League. He felt Textor had wanted Fonseca as manager for a long time and so acted when he became available, following his Milan sacking the previous month. 'The decision was a market opportunity for the owner,' Sage says. 'The name of Paulo Fonseca against the name Pierre Sage gave him (Textor) more guarantees to maybe find a new investor, to improve the club in other ways too. 'He wanted this coach for a long time and he had the opportunity to get him, so he convinced him to come and they did a deal for two and a half years. But I have a lot of respect for the owner because he gave me my chance.' Pressed on his relationship with Textor, he replies: 'It was a really close relationship because he's close to the team, he's close to the staff, he's close to the sporting directors in each of his clubs. We had a lot of discussion about the starting XI, about the system, about the assets because it's a business too, about the way to help the young players and to improve the team in the way of playing and in the transfer window. It's normal because it's his money and his club.' A month after succeeding Sage, Fonseca was in the news for all the wrong reasons. He received a nine-month ban after furiously squaring up to referee Benoit Millot at the end of Lyon's match against Brest at the start of March. As part of his French Football Association (LFP) ban, he cannot access the dressing room, tunnel, pitch or dugouts. Instead, he has watched his side's matches from the stands, although he is not permitted direct contact with his coaching team pitchside. Advertisement That runs until September 15, while he cannot return to the dugout or enter the officials' changing rooms until November 30. The sanction applies only to French competitions, so he can patrol the touchline at Old Trafford. In an interview with the Guardian last week, Fonseca described the ban as 'unbelievable', adding, 'They want to make an example of me for French football.' 'It's unfair but we are fighting against this decision and things can change,' he told the newspaper. 'It's difficult to understand, when we see so many of these situations in all countries and nobody received a penalty like I did.' Fonseca said he felt he had been made a target because of the climate around the French domestic game. A week earlier, Marseille's president, Pablo Longoria, was given a 15-game suspension after an angry rant following their defeat by Auxerre, when he claimed his side were the victims of corruption. Asked about the Fonseca incident, Sage says: 'What he did was crazy because it's maybe one second, two seconds and sometimes you lose control. It was shocking but it's someone who made a mistake. It's not his personality. 'I came up against him when he was at Lille (last season) and the two times he was really nice on the bench and I know he's not like he showed (in that moment). 'It's maybe an opportunity to discover another way of coaching. They do this in rugby, where you have the manager in the stands and the assistant on the bench. Perhaps in the stands, you are better placed to understand the game because the view is total and there's less emotion.' But what about the importance of respecting referees more generally? 'To be a referee is the most difficult thing in football, it's a really hard job,' Sage says. 'I don't say, and I will not say, anything to the referees before, during and after the game. I can lose because the referee makes a bad decision and the game after I can win because the referee makes a bad decision for the other team. But I prefer to have no interaction with the referee.' During his interview with The Athletic, Sage speaks about the impact other footballing cultures, including England, Portugal and Spain, have had on his coaching philosophy. He has taken inspiration from Mourinho for his tactical periodisation, from Pep Guardiola for his positional play and has watched Andoni Iraola's work at Bournemouth this season with interest, while he is a long-time admirer of Marcelo Bielsa. At Lyon, Sage tended to favour a 4-3-3 formation, while allowing for a degree of tactical flexibility. 'During the game, we have some rotations and asymmetric combinations to sometimes play in 4-3-3, but also in 3-4-3 or a 3-2-5,' Sage explains. 'It depends on what kind of players I have, the opponent and what we want to do in the game. Advertisement 'So my opinion is not to have something strong, it's to have something very liquid, with the idea to have a lot of adaptations between the games and in the same game, because sometimes when the opponents change something, if you are not able to adapt, to solve the problems, you will not be competitive.' During his time at Lyon, Sage oversaw the development of Rayan Cherki, Lyon's mercurial but talented forward. 'My project with him was to help him become the player he is, to become the player he can and should be,' says Sage. Sage explains how, initially, he decided to put Cherki on at the end of the matches when the only thing in his mind was to attack, to play with freedom. He remembers one match, away to Toulouse in March last season, when he had named Cherki on the bench for the seventh successive game. 'Toulouse were winning 2-1. I looked at him and I asked him, 'Are you angry? Are you nervous?'. But not nervous when you can't do anything, nervous to fight,' Sage said. 'He looked at me with the eyes of the tiger. I thought, 'Maybe he'll be good today'. He was crazy. It was the Cherki game. We won 3-2.' After a summer transfer window when he came close to leaving and trained with Lyon's B team, Cherki was reintroduced by Sage and given extra responsibility. 'I told him when he came back, 'Now this kind of thing, you have to put into the entire game. So you have to attack, you have to press with the team, you have to manage the balance between the two, but you have to stay the player you were'. We see the player he is now. I'm happy because every player can be at their best for three games, but Rayan is one of the best in every statistic in Europe. He has something really special.' Another player who came under Sage's watch at Lyon was Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who won five caps for England in 2020. Advertisement 'He is a really, really smart player,' Sage says. 'He can be a coach already because he understands the game, tactics, the interaction between different players and he's able to play in a lot of different positions. Sometimes he plays right-back, in midfield, or on the wing — he's able to do that. He can play on the right and left, he's got technical and physical abilities.' Sage says the challenge now for Maitland-Niles is to show greater consistency over a sustained period. Lyon travel to a struggling Manchester United, whose hopes of salvaging this season rest on the Europa League, with the tie locked at 2-2. Sage, who has dreams of returning to his hometown club one day, wants to see Fonseca's side take the game to United, as is the Lyon way. 'We want to attack,' Sage says. 'We can lose the game, but we want to attack. If the game is difficult, it's exciting, but we try to win it. That's the Lyon mentality.'
Reuters
31-01-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Lyon appoint Fonseca as new manager
Jan 31 (Reuters) - Olympique Lyonnais have appointed former AC Milan manager Paulo Fonseca as their new head coach on a 2 1/2-year contract, the Ligue 1 club announced on Friday. Lyon sacked Pierre Sage earlier this week but made it into the last 16 of the Europa League after a 1-1 home draw with Ludogorets in their final group-stage match on Thursday. The club are sixth in the French top-flight after managing just one win in their last five league games and were knocked out of the French Cup following a defeat by French fifth-tier club Bourgoin-Jallieu. "Olympique Lyonnais is very pleased to announce the appointment of Paulo Fonseca as head coach of the professional team until June 30, 2027," Lyon said in a statement. "This choice, taken unanimously by John Textor and the entire sports management, is part of the desire to give Olympique Lyonnais a strong ambition, both on the national and European scene." Fonseca was most recently manager of AC Milan, who sacked him in late December after only six months in the job. He previously managed Lille in Ligue 1, guiding them to a fourth-place finish last season. The Portuguese manager, a defender in his playing days, started his managerial career with the youth team of Estrela Amadora in 2005 before taking charge of Porto in 2013, followed by stints with Braga, Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk and AS Roma from 2019-2021. He won the Portuguese Super Cup with Porto in 2013, the Cup of Portugal with Braga in 2015-16, as well as the Ukrainian Premier League with Shakhtar three times in a row. His first match in charge of Lyon will be their trip to Olympique de Marseille on Sunday.
