| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 6 August 1964 | ||
| Place of birth | Brussels, Belgium | ||
| Club information | |||
| Current club | United Sikkim (manager) | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1984-1985 | RWD Molenbeek | ||
| Teams managed | |||
| 2005-2006 | East Bengal | ||
| 2006 | Prayag United | ||
| 2009-2010 | East Bengal | ||
| 2011- | United Sikkim | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Phillippe De Ridder (born 6 August 1964 in Brussels, Belgium) is a Belgian coach and a former football player. He is currently manager of United Sikkim in the Indian I-League 2nd Division.
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De Ridder played his professional football career in Belgium with the club RWD Molenbeek.
He also represented his country Belgium from the Under 12 to Under 20 stage. He has also featured in the Under 18 European Championship for his country. In 1986, a serious injury to both the knee and ankle stalled his playing career which forced him to retire.
After finishing his short lived playing career De Ridder started coaching. He began in the USA where he got his youth coaching degree. He then moved on the Brazil, Spain, and Argentina where he got his lessons in first-team coaching.
In 2005, he became manager of one of the most successful clubs of Indian Football, East Bengal in mid season. Under his coaching, East Bengal became the runners-up of the now defunct National Football League. His most notable event while with East Bengal was the victory of East Bengal against Mohun Bagan in the biggest Derby in Indian Football in front of 90,000 people. East Bengal then won the Super Cup in a one match face off tournament against the 2005-06 NFL Champions Dempo, beating them by a solitary goal.
After the 2005-06 season De Ridder signed with Chirag United (now Prayag United) after resigning with East Bengal. His stay was short as De Ridder could not qualify Chirag for the I-League 2nd Division.
In 2009, he signed with East Bengal again during the mid phase of the I-League when East Bengal was having the most disastrous season of their entire history. De Ridder then patched up the team from the miserable condition and went into the National Level tournament Federation Cup as the underdogs. When even the die hard fans were predicting an early exit of the team, De Ridder and his men returned as Champions of the tournament and beating the arch rivals Mohun Bagan 2-0 on the way. This also provided East Bengal a ticket for the AFC Cup, a second tier club tournament of the Asian Continent. He then left the club again though due to complications with the board.
On December 3 2011 De Ridder was confirmed as manager of I-League 2nd Division club United Sikkim. [1]
He is popularly known as "Indi" amongst his fans, close friends and colleagues. He is a art director, photographer, cartoonist, dancer, musician, saxophone player and a sports journalist. He is a very popular figure in the city of Kolkata and the media.
In India, he worked for the Times of India & Bartaman as expert guest, for the Bengal Post as Cartoonist as well as football expert in 2010 World cup CHANNEL 10 television show.
De Ridder can speak around seven languages out of which English, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish are the ones he can speak fluently. The others being, Portuguese and German.