Gérard Houllier

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Gérard Houllier
Personal information
Full name Gérard Houllier
Date of birth September 3, 1947 (age 59)
Place of birth Thérouanne, France
Nickname Saviour
Position Manager
Club information
Current club Olympique Lyonnais
Professional clubs*
Years Club Apps (goals)
1973-75 Le Touquet-Paris-Plage  ? (?)
Teams managed
1982-85
1985-88
1992-93
1998-04
2005-		 RC Lens
Paris St-Germain
France
Liverpool
Olympique Lyonnais

* Professional club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only.

Gérard Houllier, OBE, (born 3 September 1947, in Thérouanne, Pas-de-Calais, France) is a football manager, currently managing the French champions Lyon. He has previously managed Paris Saint-Germain and RC Lens, before a largely unsuccessful six-year period with Liverpool.

Houllier is renowned as one of the most knowledgeable managers in the game and has talent in moulding players to their potential. He assisted Aimé Jacquet in the 1998 World Cup and played a role in developing players such as Thierry Henry, Robert Pirès and David Trézéguet. Houllier was part of UEFA's and FIFA's Technical Committee, in the 2002 and 2006 World Cup finals.

Contents

[edit] Playing career

Houllier entered Lille University to pursue a degree in English, but in the first year his father's serious illness forced him to drop out of full-time study and start work, eventually as a schoolteacher, while he completed his degree part-time. As part of his degree, he elected to spend a year in 1969 - 1970 in Liverpool as an Assistant at Alsop Comprehensive School, and while there he attended his first Liverpool F.C. match on 16 September 1969 — a 10-0 thrashing of the Irish side, Dundalk F.C. He became a confirmed Liverpool fan during his stay in the city.

He was a natural football player, and at the time French football was a mixture of amateur and professional players. Although he had become deputy headmaster of the École Normale d'Arras, at the age of 26 in 1973 he began his full-time managerial career as player-manager of Le Touquet.

[edit] France

Houllier later moved to Arras as youth coach, and Nœux-les-Mines as Head Coach where he won two consecutive promotions into the French Second Division before moving to Lens in 1982. He took the Lens team to promotion and qualification for the UEFA Cup before moving to Paris Saint-Germain in 1985, and PSG won the French title the following year.

In 1988 Houllier was appointed technical director and assistant to the French national team, under manager Michel Platini. He became manager in 1992, though resigning in 1993 after the team failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup - which most blamed afterwards on winger David Ginola failing to complete a pass to Éric Cantona to score. Houllier became an extremely unpopular figure in France, being blamed not only for the failure to qualify, but also for the poor results during Platini's tenure (Platini still being popular enough that the public were reluctant to blame him directly). However, he remained with the team as as technical director. In 1998 France won the World Cup and Houllier's contribution was recognised with the award of a special medal.

[edit] Liverpool

In 1998, Houllier was invited to become joint team manager (together with Roy Evans) of Liverpool F.C. Unfortunately, the arrangement did not work well and Evans resigned a few months later, leaving Houllier in sole charge of the team.

Houllier began a five-year programme to rebuild the team, initially clearing out the "Spice Boys" - a term coined by Liverpudlian journalists to describe Paul Ince and his followers including Robbie Fowler, David James, Steve McManaman and Jamie Redknapp, as underachieving playboys in the game. To replace the players he did not see eye to eye with, and with the club short of money, Houllier engaged the services of a clutch of continental players from overseas, mainly from France.

He signed Stephane Henchoz and Sami Hyypiä prior to the start of the 1999/00 season and formed a promising partnership at the back. Houllier's aim was to finish second or third in the league, but after a last day defeat to Bradford City, Liverpool were compensated with fourth place, ensuring them with a UEFA Cup place. Leeds United were gifted with the last Champions League spot.

Restructuring a winning team took a couple of years but eventually resulted in the extremely successful 2000/01 season, when Liverpool won the Worthington Cup (League Cup), the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup to complete a unique Cup treble, as well as finishing third in the English Premier League. This had meant Liverpool were going to qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time, since its change in 1992.

Liverpool had made a promising start to the 2001/02 and attained the European Super Cup as well as the Charity Shield, which meant Liverpool became the first English team to win five cups in the same calendar year.

In October 2001, Houllier was rushed to hospital for an eleven-hour emergency operation when he suffered a dissected aorta. He returned to active management of the club after five months, but many Liverpool fans felt that he was never quite as effective a manager afterwards[citation needed]. The beginning of the end was perceived by many[citation needed] to be his decision to substitute a fit Dietmar Hamann, and bring on Vladimir Smicer away to Bayer Leverkeusen in a UEFA Champions' League quarter-final. In a game balanced 1-1 with Bayer requiring 2 goals to win, Houllier took off the defensive midfielder and exposed the defence to endless attacks. Bayer were lifted by the German's exit as Smicer did little to help the defence[citation needed].

A lack of success in later seasons, coupled with what were considered by some alleged "neutrals", negative one dimensional tactics and unattractive football, a poor youth policy, and a lack of support from fans, led to Houllier's departure from Liverpool F.C. on 24 May 2004[citation needed]. He left by mutual consent with the club.

One year later, on 25 May 2005, a Liverpool team containing many of Houllier's players won the UEFA Champions League under new manager Rafael Benítez - Houllier joined the celebrations in the dressing room afterwards.

[edit] Youth policy

Much of Houllier's youth policy was based on bringing in the best that France had to offer - after all, before he joined Liverpool, he was Head of Technical development of the French F.A., and so knew all the youth players. His purchases included most of France's 2006 winning Under21 European Cup team, including "French Gems" Anthony Le Tallec and Florent Sinama-Pongolle. But most proved too slow mentally for the speed and physical presence of the English game, or just didn't develop physically.

Houllier's last purchase was Djibril Cissé, who arrived after Houllier departed for the sum of £14million. After an injury prone two seasons, and a mental inability to unlock the off side trap even though he was probably the quickest player on most football pitches, Cissé was loaned out to Olympique Marseille for the 2006/7 season, probably never to return. On 30 August 2006 Florent Sinama-Pongolle left Liverpool for a loan season with Recreativo de Huelva - the last of the French players to leave Merseyside.

[edit] Olympique Lyonnais

On 29 May 2005, it was announced that Houllier had signed a two-year contract as manager of the champions of Ligue 1 for four successive years, Olympique Lyonnais, succeeding Paul Le Guen. Lyon got off to an extremely good start to the season, being still unbeaten in the League at the start of November, nine points ahead of their nearest challengers, Bordeaux, and with maximum points in their UEFA Champions League group, including a 3-0 win over Real Madrid.

[edit] Awards

Houllier has been awarded the Légion d'Honneur for his services to French football, and an honorary OBE for services to British football, along with manager and fellow Frenchman, Arsène Wenger.

[edit] Club honours

[edit] Paris Saint-Germain

[edit] Liverpool

[edit] Olympique Lyonnais

[edit] International honours

[edit] France

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Fatih Terim		 UEFA Cup Winning Coach
2000-01		 Succeeded by
Bert van Marwijk
Preceded by
Roy Evans		 Liverpool F.C. manager
1998–2004		 Succeeded by
Rafael Benítez
Preceded by
Paul Le Guen		 Olympique Lyonnais manager
2005-		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
Preceded by
Michel Platini		 French national football coach
1992–1993		 Succeeded by
Aimé Jacquet


Olympique Lyonnais - Current Squad

1 Coupet | 2 Clerc | 3 Cris | 4 Müller | 5 Caçapa | 6 Källström | 8 Juninho | 9 Carew | 10 Malouda | 11 Fred | 12 Réveillère | 14 Govou | 15 Diarra | 18 Ben Arfa | 19 Benzema | 20 Abidal | 21 Tiago | 22 Wiltord | 23 Berthod | 25 Hartock | 28 Toulalan | 29 Squillaci | 30 Vercoutre | 31 Hima | 34 Rémy | 36 Idangar | 38 Benhamida | 39 Bettiol | Manager: Houllier
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