League 2. The bench of ghosts – Ligue 2

It's (already) time for recovery! This Friday night will kick off the championship of Ligue 2 version 2018-2019. With, as additional attraction, the return on the benches of known faces, including Frédéric Antonetti and Philippe Montanier heads of gondola.

If the Ligue 2 will be another exciting time to follow this season, it is also because the benches will find coaches who had not worked in this championship for more or less long time. They will be six in this case, and not least! Six coaches with a reputation that goes beyond the borders for some (Antonetti, Montanier, Ba? Darevic), in the name a little less buzzy for others (Hinschberger, Brouard, Rui Almeida), but who, all, arrive with a certain philosophy and a certain knowledge behind the scenes of the League 2: its country side, sometimes. His traps, especially. His joys, many, since four of them have, one day, put up a team in the elite.

"I could have stayed on TV"

"I was in charge of training the future coaches at the DTN, but I was missing the daily activity of a club," he says. former Rennes Philippe Montanier, transferred from Nottingham Forest (English D2) mid-January 2017 and who can always highlight, on his business card, the feat of having led Boulogne-sur-Mer from the CFA to the L1. It was nine years ago. Water has flowed under the bridges since. But not as much compared to the 14 seasons that the new director of play of Metz FC, Frederic Antonetti, will put to return in the antechamber of the elite. "I could have stayed on TV, I liked it. But I wanted to take responsibility and in Metz, I fall into a club that suits me, "smiles Corsica who remains, for his last passage in the division, on a climb with the Greens of Saint-Etienne in 2004. [19659002] League 2 attracts

"Antonetti and Montanier, it is not the L2 that attracts them, but the project to find the L1 with clubs that have the means, says Philippe Hinschberger. I do not think they have the ambition to stay at this level for a very long time. " To go back to better jump, in sum. The new coach of the promoted Grenoble, chosen to lead the club Isérois after the highly commented eviction in early June of the former Brestois Olivier Guégan, will not aim for the rise at any price with the GF38. But the ambition will still be present. "One club out of two in this championship is a big name in French football! And even if a good match of L2 is not worth an average meeting of L1, it tries to play football ", he says, estimating moreover that the big work of a coach, today, is the management human. Point of view that will not contradict the Brestois Jean-Marc Furlan, who sees a "very good eye" all these returns in the circuit.

Everything, right now!

"There is such a turnover on the banks in Ligue 1, due to a much less patient environment than before, that enthusiasts must retry the adventure in Ligue 2, notes the Girondin. It's a promotion for our championship to see them come back, it adds credibility. Difficulty too, because these coaches you quoted me are all experienced. It scares, laughs Furlan, before specifying: in my opinion, it is more likely to ride with someone who is 15-20 years behind him with a young person who starts. Mecha Ba? Darevic, coach of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2014 to 2017 is in the first category. "I could have trained again in Qatar but I wanted to go back to France. I think I have taken a step back from before, where I was much less patient. " In this "before", two rises in the first division, in 2004 with Istres, season where he was elected coach of the year, then in 2008, with Grenoble. Each time at the head of "outsiders", a bit like Paris FC, he will lead after Fabien Mercadal, gone to Caen: "The PFC may not dream, yes, but we have ambitions "Slams the native of Sarajevo. The Portuguese Rui Almeida, who is recovering in Troyes, had meanwhile almost sent the Red Star to seventh heaven in 2016. But the club Saint-Ouen had finished at a point of third place before going down in the National League season. 'after. Régis Brouard, passed by Niort and Clermont, had taken his continuation and also found the Ligue 2. "I will be happy to meet all these people with whom, for some, I passed my diplomas, concludes the Briochin Patrice Lair, called at the bedside of Niort this summer. I arrive with a lot of humility, I have a lot to learn from all this beautiful world. At the age of 57, after making her debut in women's football, Lair will live her first experience as a men's head coach. An adventure in the shadow of the ghosts. But without complex.