Girondins de Bordeaux: Gérard Lopez seals the failure Vladimir Petkovic


Twice, already, the place of the Bosnian had seemed to waver…

Twice, already, the place of the Bosnian had seemed to waver: after the series of defeats against Brest (1-2) and Strasbourg (5-2) at the beginning of December then following the rouste in Rennes (6-0) on 16 January. Twice, the management had rejected the easy solution, wishing to analyze the context more generally and allow time, and a start had taken place (draw against Lyon 2-2 then victory at Troyes 1-2 in December, success against Strasbourg 4 -3 in January). The second was fragile. Sunday’s defeat confirmed in the eyes of Bordeaux decision-makers the failure of the former Switzerland coach on two points: the ability to (finally) balance his team defensively and restore emotional stability, while the players have a again completely surrendered after the second goal.

An expensive departure

For Gérard Lopez and his technical director Admar Lopes, the decision is not trivial. While the management of Laurent Koscielny’s contract could be placed in the legacy of the past and it will be necessary to wait until the end of the season to definitively judge the disappointing recruits of the summer (Fransergio, Pembélé, Mangas, Dilrosun), the separation with Vladimir Petkovic represents the first sealed failure of the new management team. It will be expensive for a club already in economic difficulty. After having had to find an agreement this summer with Jean-Louis Gasset and his staff (some 1.5 million in total) who would have seen themselves chained after the preparation, the Girondins will have to pay the technician and his assistant Antonio Manicone their two years and four months of contract remaining, or 4 to 5 million euros. Discussions had not started on Monday afternoon. And this time you must not be mistaken.

The choice of Vladimir Petkovic as the coach in charge of building, with the objective of Europe within three years, had rather seduced last summer. The Bosnian had only known one real failure in 20 years of coaching on the bench – at Samsunspor in Turkey exactly 10 years ago – his last two experiences at Lazio Rome (victory at the Italian Cup 2012) and with Switzerland (three consecutive final stages of international competition with overtaken pools) had been positive.

Reims endorsed its failure on two points: defensive balance and emotional stability

The decision-makers were banking on his high-level experience and his calm after the storms of the previous months. It was useful to prevent the fire from catching on from the first bad results in August and September. The problem is that he never managed to straighten the bar. The desire to set up a “dominant team” came up against technical limits and (already) its fragility in losing the ball. The return to a low block and a quick transition game gave some hope but were shattered in Reims. His situation was becoming untenable.

A tune from 1995-1996

Mitigating circumstances? Petkovic had a few of them: his arrival only a few days before the start of the championship without preparation, the turmoil of August, players not all at the required level or even a cluster against a background of neglect of his group, gathered in almost all of December 19 to celebrate M’Baye Niang’s birthday when two elements had already tested positive for Covid. Three matches (Lille 2-3, Brest 2-0 in the Coupe de France, Marseille 0-1) suffered absences.

With the language barrier, he never managed to get rid of the image of “nice”

However, excuses are less acceptable after Reims: the workforce now seemed reinvigorated and supplemented by recruits from the January transfer window.

On the same subject

Reims - Girondins de Bordeaux: A return to zero

Reims – Girondins de Bordeaux: A return to zero

Despite the integration of two recruits, the Girondins delivered to Reims a copy close to that returned to Rennes (6-0) three weeks ago with a similar humiliation at the end. Coach Vladimir Petkovic should be the next fuse

In one of his rare press conferences where he spoke, on December 3, Petkovic pointed out that he may have suffered from his lack of knowledge of the L1 and have been “too nice”. With the language barrier, he never managed to get rid of this trait, dubbing without contradicting the sidelining of Koscielny and Otavio who disrupted his locker room, and maintaining relations neither hot nor cold. with his group. As often in these cases, the successor will have to be different and take his men with him for a commando mission with around twenty points to take in 15 days and a single objective: to save the club.

In history, long before the waltz of the coaches who have accompanied the club’s slide since 2016, the situation recalls an episode: in February 1996, Alain Afflelou had dismissed Slavo Muslin, deemed too little authoritarian, on the 25th day. Gernot Rohr had recovered a team 14th with 5 points ahead of the red zone and, in its ranks, the Huard, Dogon, Lucas, Lizarazu, Zidane, Dugarry, Tholot and other heroes of the UEFA Cup. This time, the chosen one will go further.



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