Rise of the rookies
Christophe Galtier
(Lille)
If as good a judge as Jose Mourinho describes the Lille coach as the best in France’s Ligue 1, it is surely time to sit up and take note. Mourinho, regularly in attendance at Lille home games following his departure from Manchester United in December, makes no secret of his admiration for the 53-year-old Galtier, telling L’Equipe TV last term: “I think he is the coach of the season. He’s qualified his side for the Champions League, they were runnersup in the French league. Then there’s the high quality of the football and his development of young players. He is the man of the season.”
When steering Saint-Etienne to victory in the 2013 French Cup – the club’s first trophy in over three decades – Galtier was viewed by the Gallic media as a one-dimensional defensive obsessive, someone whose primary concern was keeping the back door locked. That, however, was a little unfair. At Saint-Etienne, he often used to go with a bright and breezy 4-3-3, and he certainly brought out the best of a young front runner by the name of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who racked up goal upon goal for Les Verts.
At Lille, where he took over in late 2017, Galtier has worked nothing less than a miracle, taking a dysfunctional side which came within a whisker of relegation in his inaugural campaign and turning them into a total-football sensation last time out.
“The high quality of the football and his development of young playersJose Mourinho on Galtier last term
