FC Nantes: firefighter on duty, Antoine Kombouaré returns to his house

Twenty-eight years later, it is perhaps on another whim that the Kanak, born in Nouméa 57 years ago, set foot in the Nantes quagmire. Antoine Kombouaré succeeds Raymond Domenech on the bench of FC Nantes. The task that awaits the former central defender, whose name had already circulated in December on the side of the Beaujoire, appears immense, perhaps even impossible: to save a historic club but in distress from a slow agony and a descent scheduled in Ligue 2.

From Sunday in Angers where he will come with an assistant, Kombouaré will have to stop an infernal spiral: stop a series of 14 games without a win for the current 18th in Ligue 1 and barrage. He will also enter in his own way in a sad book of records by becoming the 19th coach of the Kita era started in 2007. He will be the fourth Nantes coach this season after Christian Gourcuff, Patrick Collot and Raymond Domenech. Four coaches is already more than the number of victories for the Canaries in Ligue 1 (3) this season.

“Nantes is my heart club”

But then what is Antoine Kombouaré doing in this galley, embarked on a drifting raft? If his career is associated with PSG of which he was both a player (1990-1995), head of the reserve team (1999-2003) and then head coach (2009-2011), Kombouaré is above all from Nantes.

It was here that he began his career by disembarking from the Pacific in 1983. With Nantes, the young Kombouaré played 177 matches from 1983 to 1990. He saw the birth of the Deschamps-Desailly generation at the end of the 1980s on the banks of the Erdre. However, he did not win the slightest trophy, being satisfied with two titles of vice-champion of France in 1985 and 1986. “I owe everything to Nantes,” he told us in February 2019. It is the club that m ‘allowed me to become what I am today. I arrived as a tourist and was taught what a professional player is. I owe everything to my teachers Raynald Denoueix, to the training, and to Jean-Claude Suaudeau, as well as to all those who made me grow there: the Bossis, Bertrand-Demanes, Amisse, Halilhodzic, Touré… Nantes is my heart club. “

Since his departure more than 30 years ago, the great golf lover has always kept Nantes in a corner of his mind. But his Tour de France never brought him home. Strasbourg, Valenciennes, PSG, Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, Lens, Guingamp, Dijon and Toulouse have, since he started his coaching career in 2000, benefited from his services on a bench. “I have never had an agent as a player and never since I started coaching. And I’m not a careerist, ”he flatters himself. But success has not always been there.

Fired from PSG at the top of Ligue 1 in 2011

Fired from PSG at Christmas time in 2011 to make way for Carlo Ancelotti while Paris is at the top of Ligue 1, “Gold Head” as he was nicknamed at the time of his most famous exploits has been forged a long time ago. reputation of firefighter on duty, this providential man called to put out the smoldering fire in a club. “The memory I keep of Antoine, remembers Gervais Martel who was its president at Lens from 2013 to 2016, is that of a demanding coach with a strong character that puts the group before individuality. I told him: Untel is injured or suspended. Ihe replied: It’s his problem, it doesn’t matter: the band is here. Better to agree with him too. When he was with me in Lens, the club had financial difficulties but he never gave up the ship, doing almost miracles with a group which did not have the right to be reinforced. “

In 2014, it enabled Lens to return to Ligue 1 before accompanying the immediate descent a year later. In 2016, he arrived in Guingamp. He was sacked two and a half years later after a lackluster career in Ligue 1 (10th then 12th) and a heavy 5-0 defeat in Nantes. “Do you know any coaches who have done everything? said Gervais Martel. Where he failed, perhaps no one could have done better than him. Antoine’s course is also paved with great successes in Strasbourg, Valenciennes, Lens or at PSG. Let us not forget that. “

Failures in Guingamp and Toulouse before disembarking in Nantes

His path then leads him to Dijon for 6 months in 2019. He allows the Burgundy club to wrest its maintenance in Ligue 1 after the dams but the adventure does not last. A few months later, the experience also came to an end in Toulouse where he was dismissed from his post after a sad series of 10 consecutive defeats. “If I had the choice, I would go to Real Madrid or PSG! In Paris, I’ve been there before… I’m very happy to have a job, and I have a fantastic chance: I am the only one to decide and I take responsibility. I know football, I assume that it can stop at any time. Sometimes when I lose I say to myself: It’s hot for me. But, as always, we will take stock at the end of the season. He said these words in Toulouse a few months ago. He must remember this when returning to Nantes.