This Wednesday (9 p.m.) AS Saint-Étienne meets Jean-Louis Gasset, current coach of the Girondins de Bordeaux. The technician spent 18 months on the Green bench between November 2017 and May 2019. “I have been a coach 35 years ago, I have known two, three magical places explains Jean-Louis Gasset. Montpellier because it’s my club, my city, it’s home, Paris where I have experienced extraordinary things, and Saint-Étienne. I only lived 18 months in Saint-Étienne but I can tell you that I have images of a human adventure with players, with an audience. Magnificent.“
My players, an army
“I had a group of players, I had fifteen pros, it was an army, he remembers. I’m not saying we were the best team but the men, we experienced something. When we broke up everyone was crying“. Because the idyll ends suddenly, in May 2019.”I still have in mind this last match against Nice (3-0) which brings us Europe, I know that I will stop because I am done, at the end of the roll and these people who thank you … Hat!“
Rescue of the club then Europe
Arrived in Forez in November 2017 initially to support the novice Julien Sablé, promoted after the failure of the Spaniard Oscar Garcia, Gasset is entrusted during the following winter break with the fate of the Greens, stuck at the bottom of the table after ten matches without a win including a memorable defeat (0-5) at home in the derby against Lyon. He began this role of firefighter on duty by bringing in several recruits who would subsequently put a strain on Stéphane’s finances. Choices that have been criticized, but that he assumes. “I told the presidents (Roland Romeyer and Bernard Caïazzo) that the team had to be strengthened. Everyone agreed at the club“, he defends himself. Mathieu Debuchy, Yann M’Vila, Neven Subotic and Paul-Georges Ntep come as well”to give me a hand“.
No one will manage to hurt me when we talk about Saint-Étienne
If the technician is justified, it is in particular in response to the inventory drawn up on numerous occasions by the current general manager of AS Saint-Étienne Claude Puel about the finances of the club weighed down by transfer policies and too expensive wages in recent seasons. But “nobody will manage to hurt me when we talk about Saint-Étienne“explains Jean-Louis Gasset.”Everything was done in agreement with the management. I was asked for two missions, I did both missions. If that had seemed exaggerated, people would have said to me “Jean-Louis, we can’t go where you want”. And maybe we wouldn’t have raised the bar like we did and maybe Saint-Étienne would no longer be in L1“.
During his 57 matches in Ligue 1 with the Greens, Jean-Louis Gasset turned at 1.77 points per game, the best ratio of his career on a bench.