Digard’s successor is in place
Le Havre have their man. Valérien Ismaël signed his contract on Thursday afternoon, according to L’Équipe, which cites sources close to the coach. The 51-year-old replaces Didier Digard, a move the paper had first reported on Wednesday evening.
Ismaël had been out of work since February, when he left Blackburn Rovers in the Championship. His arrival ends a short search on the Normandy coast and gives the club a coach with a long record of short-term rescue jobs.
no renewal
Free for 2 weeks.
A career built abroad
The striking part of the appointment is the geography. Ismaël has been coaching since 2014 and has worked in Germany at Nuremberg and Wolfsburg, in Greece with Apollon Smyrnis, in Austria at LASK and in Turkey at Besiktas. Most of his recent work came in England, with spells at Barnsley, West Bromwich Albion, Watford and Blackburn. None of that was in France. Le Havre is his first job in his home country.
His playing days followed a similar route. The Strasbourg native played in France, Germany and England between 1994 and 2009, with Bayern Munich, Strasbourg, Lens and Crystal Palace among his clubs. So he knows Ligue 1 from the inside, just not from the touchline.
A specialist for a survival brief
His reputation in England was built on intense pressing and physical, direct teams, the kind of style that suits sides fighting at the wrong end of a table. That is the profile Le Havre have gone for. The international break gives him a few days on the training ground before his first league match in charge.
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