R.I.P. Bruno Metsu

[King Binny]

Bruno Metsu in his playing days at Valenciennes (1975-1979).



[article]Metsu’s honours
Al Ain
AFC Champions League: 2003
UAE Pro League: 2003, 2004

Al Gharafa
Qatar Stars League: 2005
Shaikh Jassem Cup: 2006
Crown Prince Cup: 2011
Emir Cup: 2011

UAE
Gulf Cup of Nations: 2007[/article]
[article=http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/football-former-senegal-coach-metsu-dies-aged-59-075653553--sow.html]Former Senegal coach Bruno Metsu, who led the African country to the World Cup quarter finals in 2002, has died aged 59, French media reported on Tuesday.

Local newspaper La Voix du Nord, sports daily L'Equipe and France Football magazine reported that Metsu, who quit his coaching job at Dubai club Al Wasl last year to fight stomach cancer, passed away overnight at his Dunkirk home in northern France.

The much-travelled Metsu, also known as "The White Sorcerer", also coached Guinea, Qatar, and several clubs in the Gulf region.

However, the highlight of his career came at the 2002 World Cup when Senegal beat holders France in the opening game and went on to reach the last eight. That year, Senegal also reached the African Nations Cup final.[/article]

[article=http://www.sport360.com/football/ex-uae-senegal-boss-bruno-metsu-dies-aged-59]Former UAE, Al Ain and Al Wasl boss Bruno Metsu has passed away at the age of 59 after a long battle with cancer.

News of Metsu's death comes almost a year to the day he was forced to stand down as Wasl boss after being diagnosed advanced cancer in his colon, liver and lungs.

In an interview with French daily L'Equipe back in July, the hugely popular coach, who guided the UAE to a first ever Gulf Cup success in 2007, spoke of "playing the match of his life".

Metsu also revealed that he was drawing strength from countryman Eric Abidal's own remarkable recovery from a life-threatening liver transplant as he bravely battled the terminal illness.

Aside from his success with the UAE, Metsu also guided Al Ain to AFC Champions League glory 10 years ago and in doing so became the first coach to taste continental success with a UAE club.

However, it was back in 2002 when the name of Bruno Metsu swept around the footballing world like wildfire after the Frenchman masterminded one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history.

France, defending champions and also Euro 2000 victors, were beaten by Metsu’s unfancied Senegal 1-0 in their opening match of the 2002 World Cup thanks to a goal from Papa Bouba Diop.

It was on the game's greatest stage that a relatively-unknown Metsu had given a first glimpse of the credentials that would soon make him revered in the UAE.

A charismatic figure with the flowing locks that were more rock star than football manager, Metsu exuded an aura that immediately stood out from his contemparies.

A league and AFC Champions League double with Al Ain in 2003 captured the hearts of fans in the Garden City, with many taken by his humility and attention to detail in his tactics and strategy.

Four years later he was the toast of the Emirates after guiding the UAE to their first major trophy with success at the Gulf Cup on home soil.

His former captain Mohammed Omar paid tribute to his qualities and remarked that he was “loved by the players whether they were on the field or in the stands”.

That sentiment was echoed by Senegalese striker El Hadji-Diouf, who came to the fore under Metsu's tutelage in 2002 leading to a big-money move to Liverpool.

“For us, Bruno was like the dad of the team,” said Diouf in an exclusive interview with Sport360° last year.

“He’s the guy who always looks after the players, wants them to do well and gives them a lot of confidence. If you manage people and don’t give them confidence I don’t think it works. He made it work.

“He gave confidence to the players and you saw that on the pitch with our team’s performances. "We did well in the World Cup because we had a good spirit and we wanted to win together. He always gave the players belief that we could beat anyone, not just me.

"He’s a winner. I know him very well like my dad and he is a passionate man. He knows only one thing. He used to say all the time that ‘only winning was beautiful’.

Following his success in the UAE, Metsu spent time in charge of the Qatari national team and one of the country's biggest clubs, Al Gharafa, before returning Al Wasl in the summer of 2012.

An encouraging start to life at the Zabeel was cruelly cut short by the diagnosis that would ultimately lead to his untimely death.

Bruno Mestu. Gone, but never will he be forgotten here in the United Arab Emirates.[/article]

Earlier in Jul 2013
[article=http://gulfnews.com/sport/football/bruno-metsu-playing-the-match-of-his-life-1.1215532]Former UAE national team coach Bruno Metsu has revealed he is “playing the match of his life” in his first interview since being diagnosed with terminal cancer nine months ago.

Metsu, 59, resigned as coach of Dubai club Al Wasl last October after being told the shattering news that he had advanced cancer in his colon, liver and lungs.

The UAE’s 2007 Gulf Cup-winning coach, who also lifted the 2003 Asian Champions League title with Al Ain, had only been with the Zabeel outfit for three months after succeeding Diego Maradona last summer.

Since then, the tactician most famous for leading Senegal to a shock 1-0 win over his native France in the opening match of the 2002 Fifa World Cup, has remained out of the spotlight. That was until an interview with French sports daily L’Equipe on Wednesday.

“They gave me three months [to live],” said Metsu, who has since returned to France with his wife and three young children.

“It was an enormous shock. I was with Viviane, my wife and we were crying as we left the hospital. You think about your kids and everyone around you.

“I started chemotherapy almost immediately and when I went to the hospital, I was in a wheelchair, I was so weak but there was no question of giving up.

“Often as a coach, you tell your players: ‘Today is the match of your life’. But no, it isn’t! Today, yes, I am playing the match of my life.

“I wanted to tell my story or rather my testimony. When I saw a programme on Eric Abidal, that gives strength and inspiration to others, that is a powerful thing,” he said, referring to the French defender who has recently come back from a life-threatening liver transplant due to cancer.

“When someone gives you three months, you fight to go further,” said Metsu, who has gained 2kgs in recent weeks after losing 17kgs since his diagnosis.

“You tell yourself: ‘You, you’re not going in three months and if you beat me, it won’t be easy.

“In February, we didn’t notice that I had pneumonia and I had chemo on top of it. I stayed 10 days between life and death. That was the most difficult fight that I have known. Ninety per cent of people don’t survive this situation, but I had an incredible desire to survive.

“I have learnt a lot about myself and family values. Today I can watch my children grow up and I have had nine months of happiness at their side and it’s so much better than football.

“These kind of challenges can also bring a lot too. You see things differently. You take on a completely new way of thinking and how to be strong, like Abidal.”

Of his latest prognosis, Metsu, said: “Currently, it is well stabilised in the liver and lung and my blood tests are better. On Monday, I had a scan and it’s going much better. The doctor was happy, and me even more.”[/article]

 

[LeTallecWiz]

RIP

 

[Roopy]

Such sad news. A good manager and a good character.

RIP

 

[King Binny]

[article=http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/oct/16/bruno-metsu-senegal-africa-2002]Bruno Metsu never liked the nickname "The White Sorcerer". It was patronising and clichéd, the antithesis of the attributes that he exuded during a successful career built on intelligence and joy. Those qualities took him from the docks of Dunkirk, where, like his father, he worked as a teenager, to the top of the world. They are the reasons why football fans everywhere were sad to hear of his death from cancer on Monday at the age of 59.

Metsu spent most of the past decade in the Middle East, winning titles in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and even guiding al-Ain to victory in the Asian Champions League. But it was his two years in charge of Senegal that imprinted him for ever in football folklore. The image is still fresh: the charismatic coach with the tousled long hair and dapper suit watching intently from the sidelines as his dashing young team shocked the reigning champions France on the way to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup. What a thrilling way to topple the established order! It felt fun, it felt vital. Senegal style themselves as the "Lions of Teranga", meaning both formidable and friendly, and with Metsu they were ferociously likable.


Before beginning an unremarkable playing career as a midfielder with a series of clubs in his native northern France, Metsu worked as a courier on the Dunkirk docks and it was his ability to transmit his messages and zest that made him a remarkable manager. He made the transition from playing to managing quickly, hanging up his boots after helping Beauvais to promotion to Ligue 2 and immediately taking over the club's youth team and then the senior team. His five successful years there – during which he twice went close to winning the prestigious national youth cup, the Coupe Gambardella, and reached the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France – attracted the attention of Lille, who appointed him as manager at the age of 39 in 1992 .

He found being in charge of a senior team more brutal, a point reinforced when he was dismissed after just one win, the board summoning him to a meeting and inquiring: "So have you heard the gossip? We're letting you go." It was a crass way to sack a man, especially one who prided himself on the strong bonds he formed in dressing rooms.

Things hardly got easier, as for his next job he was appointed manager of Valenciennes at the darkest point in that club's history, immediately after their demotion to Ligue 2 and the discovery that some of their players had accepted bribes to throw a game against Marseille. He lasted a year there, then had spells at Sedan and Valence before, in need of a jolt, he applied to become the manager of Guinea.

"At the time I felt like I had had too much of football but African players reinvigorated me," he said in an interview with La Voix du Nord in 2011. The feeling was mutual and in less than a year he was hired by Senegal, who had just lost to Nigeria in the quarter-finals of the 2000 Africa Cup of Nations. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

He immediately began fostering the esprit de corps that would fuel his Senegal side, recalling several players whom the federation did not want in the national team due to perceived indiscipline. He deployed no iron fist. Instead he rallied the players around the belief that together they could achieve something special. Easy words that only a genuinely impressive leader can make convincing. It was clear that Metsu's message was getting through when they reached the 2002 World Cup and then defeated their nemesis, Nigeria, on their way to the final of that year's Africa Cup of Nations, another first for the country.

Of course there were technical and tactical reasons for their success but it was Senegal's spirit and cohesiveness that set them above. "We worked as hard as any team in the world in training … but you don't have to be a great manager to send out a team in a 4-4-2, a 4-3-3 or whatever because anyone can do that," Metsu said in an interview on Senegalese radio last year. "By contrast, channelling everyone's energy and strength in the same direction, that is something else. Motivating players, giving them confidence, making them mentally strong … football is not just about tactics and some people tend to forget that."

His relaxed attitude appeared unorthodox but was based on knowledge and respect of his players. He knew how to get the best out of them and they appreciated that. "I am a big believer in human values, if you don't love your players you don't get results," he said. "It's all about the little something extra that a manager can bring, the boost that you give the players and they give you."

A more insecure manager might have bowed to the demands to send Khalilou Fadiga home in disgrace when the winger was accused of stealing a gold necklace from a South Korean jewellery shop in the week before the World Cup kick-off but Metsu knew his players and accepted the explanation that it had been a giddy prank; similarly, when journalists reported with surprise that many of his players were up arm-wrestling in their hotel at 2am on the day of their historic match against France, he replied that his players prepared in whatever way suited them best. "I am not a cop," he later explained. "Football is about joy and I know what the players do in training and what they can do on the pitch." What they did on the pitch in Seoul that day was as unexpected as it was unforgettable.

The thinking was that Metsu was in Senegal for the same reason that 21 of his 23 players were based in France: because they were not good enough to work elsewhere, unlike Les Bleus, whose players were stars at the biggest clubs on the planet. "Let's see if the pupils can teach the master a thing or two," Metsu said on the morning of their match. And they did. France had a lot of the ball but Senegal prevented them from doing much with it and then, in the 30th minute, Papa Bouba Diop sprung a sensation on the counterattack. France attempted to recover but Senegal were sharper and stronger and could even have increased their lead, Fadiga hitting the crossbar in the second half. Unexpected it may have been, but their victory was not undeserved.

"By concentrating five players in midfield my friend Metsu concocted a nice plan," conceded the magnanimous defeated France manager, Roger Lemerre. "Individually and collectively we couldn't find a solution. Senegal were better than us."

The victory was no flash in the plan: in their next match they drew with Denmark 1-1, Salif Diao scoring one of the all-time classic counterattacking goals. They then hurtled into a 3-0 half-time lead against Uruguay in their final group game, only to slacken off too early and slip to a 3-3 draw. But they then came from behind to knock out Sweden 2-1 in the round of 16 thanks to a golden goal extra-time goal by Henri Camara. Those exploits caught up with them in the quarter-final, when they appeared drained of their usual effervescence and lost in extra time to a Turkey golden goal. A pity, but Senegal and Metsu had made their mark.

Metsu reckoned that the World Cup heralded the "dawn of a great team" but, in fact, that was as good as it got for Senegal. When Metsu accepted an exorbitant offer to go to the United Arab Emirates, the group unravelled. None of the players went on to fulfil their potential, least of all El-Hadji Diouf and Diao, whom Liverpool had snapped up before the World Cup in what seemed like an outstanding instance of shrewd dealing but neither Gérard Houllier nor any of the players' subsequent managers could inspire them the way Metsu did.

Given his ability to build team spirit, it is interesting to wonder how France might have fared if they had responded favourably to Metsu's application in 2004, when they instead chose to appoint Raymond Domenech as manager. Interesting, too, to wonder how Senegal might be shaping up ahead of the second leg of their World Cup play-off against Ivory Coast if Metsu's bid to return there had been accepted last year. It would have been interesting, quite simply, to continue following Metsu no matter what he did.[/article]

 

[Roopy]

"Let's see if the pupils can teach the master a thing or two"

Fucking love that line.