The current favourite to be Ireland's next manager
IRISH VIEWERS will be taking a keener interest than usual in the fortunes of the Georgian football team this summer.
Previously part of the Soviet Union, the country played its first match in 1990 and is debuting at the European Championships.
The Irish interest is because the man leading the team, ex-France international Willy Sagnol, has been heavily linked with the vacant Ireland post.
Sagnol would fit the FAI’s criteria for a manager with international experience.
Last March, Director of Football Marc Canham suggested the association’s search was nearing an end and would conclude in early April.
“Existing contractual obligations mean that we are not in a position to announce any further details at this point,” Canham added.
Consequently, there was speculation that the FAI had lined up Sagnol and the 47-year-old Saint-Étienne-born coach could not commit because he was in the process of navigating the playoffs.
At that point, Georgia were considered underdogs to qualify for the Euros. They needed to beat Luxembourg and Greece to seal a ticket to Germany.
Yet they upset the odds, defeating Luxembourg 2-0 and overcoming a Greek side managed by Gus Poyet — another man recently linked to the Ireland job — 4-2 on penalties following a 0-0 draw after extra time. The success was achieved despite Georgia having to play most of the contest with 10 men — 38-year-old goalkeeper Giorgi Loria was sent off in first-half stoppage time.
Did this unlikely outcome put a spanner in the works as far as the FAI were concerned and could Sagnol re-emerge as the frontrunner for the Ireland job once the Euros are completed?
It would explain why Canham originally seemed so confident of landing a manager in “early April” and has set a new deadline of September ahead of the opening Nations League fixture against England on the 7th of that month.
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Despite the impressive achievement with Georgia, Sagnol is still probably most famous for a glittering playing career.
He won 58 caps for France, including starting all seven games in the 2006 World Cup — they lost to Italy in the final on penalties despite Sagnol scoring in the shootout.
Sagnol might have played more for his country, but a supremely talented full-back, Lillian Thuram, was ahead of him in the pecking order.
He wasn’t part of the squads that won the 1998 World Cup or Euro 2000, Sagnol had only just turned 21 by the time of the former, but he did feature in every major tournament, starting from the 2002 World Cup to Euro 2008.
Marcel Desailly’s retirement saw Thuram move to central defence and paved the way for Sagnol to secure more regular game time.
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Losing the 2006 final was a particularly bitter pill to swallow. Sagnol later revealed that he didn’t speak to Zinedine Zidane for nearly two years after his infamous sending-off in that game for a blatant headbutt on Italy defender Marco Materazzi.
“I did not want to accept his apologies, or talk to him. Now was not the moment,” Sagnol said of Zidane after the final.
“I had to go to the bathroom, smoke 250 cigarettes in 10 minutes. This is how I escaped.”
Zinedine Zidane and Willy Sagnol from France during the final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Sagnol explained how a wedding invite eventually broke the ice between the pair.
“In 2008, after the European Championship, I had to get married. My wife told me to invite him.
“I called him but he couldn’t come to the party at night, but it made me happy to see him arrive for the morning. We had an aperitif together.”
At club level, Sagnol enjoyed plenty of success too. He started at hometown team Saint-Étienne and then spent three seasons with Monaco, playing a key role in their title triumph in the 1999-2000 season.
However, it was at Bayern Munich that he truly established himself as a world-class full-back, making over 200 appearances in eight seasons with the club, winning five Bundesliga titles, four DFB-Pokals (the German equivalent of the FA Cup) and the Champions League (he started in the 2001 final as they beat Valencia on penalties) during that period.
Chelsea's Damien Duff tussles with Bayern Munich's Willy Sagnol L for the ball.
Yet he retired from playing aged 31 after failing to recover from an Achilles tendon injury suffered at Euro 2008.
“The evidence is there – it’s an injury which won’t heal,” he said. “Surgery is not possible. The only solution is to stop.”
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After playing, Sagnol served as France’s technical director and coached their U20 and U21 teams.
His first high-profile job came when he was appointed manager of Bordeaux in May 2014.
The new boss produced a creditable performance in his first season, helping the club finish sixth and secure a Europa League spot.
But it all fell apart in his second campaign in charge — Sagnol was dismissed after a 4-0 loss to rivals and fellow strugglers Toulouse in March 2016, with the club 14th and only five points above the relegation zone (caretaker boss Ulrich Rame ultimately guided them to an 11th-place finish).
Sagnol’s time at Bordeaux was not without controversy. He came under fire in particular for comments about African players.
“The advantage of the typical African player is that he is not expensive when you take him, he’s generally ready to fight and he is powerful on the pitch. But football is not just that, it’s also technique, intelligence, discipline,” Sagnol told the Sud Ouest newspaper.
“It’s uninhibited anti-black racism,’ SOS Racisme said in a statement, urging that “the LFP (French League), FFF (French Federation) and the Sports Ministry take immediate sanctions” against Sagnol in response.
Former teammate Thuram added: “It is damaging that someone can hint that African players lack this or that quality.”
Sagnol ultimately apologised for the comments following a backlash.
“If my lack of clarity or my imperfect semantics hurt or offended people, I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’ve never had any problems with anyone. [My comments] were purely about sports but it was made into something political,” the coach added in a lengthy explanation.
“I regret that these people (critics) didn’t read to the end of my interview where I say a football team is like life, like France, it is a mix and I am proud to be French.
“The interpretation by some people in no way reflects my thoughts and, my discussion was about sports and not politics or society.”
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Bayern coach Carlo Ancelotti left and assistant Willy Sagnol right pose with beer in traditional Bavarian clothes during a photo shooting of a brewing company in Munich.
Sagnol has also worked as a TV pundit and as a functionary for Saint-Étienne but has had just one high-profile job in football between the Bordeaux and Georgia stints.
Just over a year after his Bordeaux departure, the former France international returned to Bayern Munich as assistant manager to Carlo Ancelotti in June 2017.
Ancelotti took over from Pep Guardiola and had already been in the role for a season, guiding Bayern to the Bundesliga title. However, the Italian was sacked less than four months after Sagnol’s arrival.
The former Bayern star had eight days as interim manager, overseeing a 2-2 draw with Hertha BSC but was not part of incoming manager Jupp Heynckes’ plans and consequently left the club.
In February 2021, more than three years after departing Bayern, Sagnol was appointed manager of Georgia.
The country were ranked 89th in the world at the time but Sagnol spoke glowingly of the “high quality of the exchanges with the committee (of the federation)” and the team’s potential.
They had finished fourth in their Euro 2020 qualifying group, five points behind Mick McCarthy’s Ireland.
Like the Republic, they advanced to the playoffs and beat Belarus 1-0 in the semis before losing by the same scoreline in the final to North Macedonia.
Following Sagnol’s appointment, they again came fourth in their 2022 World Cup qualifying group.
However, they ended the campaign strongly, earning wins over Kosovo and Sweden.
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Moreover, they drew with Greece earlier in the campaign and were moments away from doing likewise at home to Spain before Dani Olmo scored a last-minute winner.
Georgia’s subsequent Nations League performances played a big part in boosting confidence and paving the way for Euros qualification.
They ended up top of Group C4, winning five out of six matches, and finishing ahead of Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Gibraltar, earning promotion to League B.
It also guaranteed their spot in the playoffs, so when they again were fourth in Euro 2024 qualification after two wins, two draws and four losses ahead of Cyprus and behind Spain, Scotland and Norway, the country subsequently sealed their ticket via the backdoor route.
They have played just one game since qualifying — a 3-1 friendly victory over Montenegro last week.
“It’s not the biggest European federation but they try to work hard and do things well; they try to develop younger generations,” Sagnol told Uefa.com earlier this month.
“I hope that participating in the Euros will bring both the federation and the nation of Georgia an experience that will spur us on to new feats.”
On his impact since taking over following the heartbreaking North Macedonia loss, Sagnol added: “We developed the players’ and everyone’s perspective on football. We needed to change things around, to make everything more in line with the top-level requirements. The players have been fantastic in this regard. They’ve been working for two or three years, changing many things. Some of them have even changed everything in their way of approaching football. This is a reward for those lads too, as they’ve believed [in this goal] for a while now.”
Georgia's national coach Willy Sagnol M speaks to the team during training.
How much further Georgia can go remains to be seen. Bookmakers generally have them as the least likely team to win Euro 2004 with odds of 500/1 — Albania, Slovakia and Slovenia are the only sides whose chances of triumphing are considered similarly improbable.
Simply picking up points in a group that includes Portugal, Czech Republic and Turkey won’t be easy either.
Moreover, as it stands, Sagnol also remains — along with John O’Shea — the bookies’ favourite for the Ireland job.
It is now 206 days since Stephen Kenny’s departure as Ireland’s boss was confirmed, while it is 365 days or one year exactly since the Boys in Green lost 2-1 to Greece and the writing appeared to be on the wall for the embattled manager.
If Sagnol turns out to be Kenny’s permanent successor, he will be under pressure to prove he has been worth the wait — a positive result against England would go some way towards silencing the doubters.