Gérard LEFILLATRE

Gérard Lefillatre arrived at Stade Rennais FC in 1992 as General Manager. His mission was to help the club progress from being a club who spent most of their time yo-yoing between the First and Second Divisions. In 1994, the club got back into the top flight, and the General Manager assembled a squad based on some young talented players (such as Heurtebis, Huard, André, Gourvennec and Wiltord), the Marseille connection (Rousset, Fugier, Thomas) and the Swiss contingent (Ohrel and Grassi.) Under the stewardship of Le Milinaire, this team quickly assured their safety, and produced sparkling football at home. In 1995/1996, the team was strengthened with the arrival of Cyprien and Ziani, and qualified for the Intertoto Cup for the first time in the club’s history. The two subsequent seasons were considerably more stressful, with survival only being secured at the end of the season, and the new signings who turned out to be flops, aside from the goalscorers Guivarc’h, and then Diawara. With an increased budget to spend in 1998, Revault, Arribagé, Sommeil, Le Roux and Nonda arrived in Brittany under the management of Paul Le Guen. A mouth-watering prospect of a head-to-head with Juventus in 1999/2000 inspired the club’s board to invest heavily in the transfer market, but with little or no success (Lucas, Turdo, Fabiano, Cesar). The club failed to reach its objectives. Lefillatre was blamed, and he made the symbolic gesture of appointing Gourcuff as the new Manager, and signed the promising Nantes player Monterrubio. The Breton boss’ methods never found favour at Rennes, and the complete overhaul of the club by François Pinault put an end to both Lefillatre and Gourcuff’s involvement in the summer of 2002.