The 30-year-old English boss has turned around Reims’ Ligue 1 form since taking charge in October. Next stop Blighty, then?
Chris Evans
INTERVIEW
You grew up in Belgium, after your parents moved there from England. Did you ever come close to making it as a professional player?
When I was a kid, I came up through Sint-Truiden’s youth academy. I played at the elite standard of Belgian youth football, then when I was 18 I went to England to do a degree in football coaching at Myerscough College in Preston. I was still turning out for the college where there were links with Stockport County and several other clubs, but I wasn’t getting the same chances as some of the other players and decided that I probably wasn’t physically or mentally made out to be a professional footballer.
How did you move into coaching?
I got the bug from coaching the kids and doing video analysis for Preston’s academy. When I eventually moved back to Belgium I was still playing in the Belgian fourth tier, but at the end of the season I had a choice to keep playing and try to move up the leagues, or really invest myself in video analysis and coaching. I chose the latter.
How did your journey progress from that point onwards?
I started off as a video analyst at Sint-Truiden in Belgium [in 2014], although I wasn’t actually paid for my first year there. Then I went to Standard Liege because the coach I was working with [Yannick Ferrera] moved there, but after winning the cup in our first year, we were sacked the year afterwards.
I went on become assistant coach at Lierse in the second division – after the coach [Frederik Vanderbiest] was sacked, I was asked to take over when I was only 24, which was crazy.
Had you always been ambitious to be the main man one day?
It wasn’t until I took over at Lierse that I got the bug for it. We were bottom of the league and went on a 10-game unbeaten run, going from bottom to top. From that moment, I thought, ‘I really enjoy doing this’, but the club went bust, so I went back to being an assistant with Beerschot. In my third year there, it happened again – the manager [Hernan Losada] moved to MLS and the club asked me to take over until the end of the season.
How did you end up in France?
I had spells as an assistant with Reims and Standard Liege, before coming back to Reims at the end of last term. This season started with disappointing results, so the manager Oscar Garcia was sacked in October and the club turned to me to do the job until the World Cup. The World Cup came and went, and they asked me to carry on in the longer term.
Why have so many people seen you a
