When ex-Liverpool and France manager Houllier was only a phone call away

BEFORE hiring French coaches became fashionable following Les Bleus’ maiden World Cup victory in their own backyard in 1998, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) were probably two steps ahead than the rest of the world.

Previously reliant on coaches from the British Isles, the FAM had the bravado to appoint journeyman Claude Le Roy, who arrived on our shores in February 1994 after enjoying notable success with Cameroon in the late 1980s.

A Frenchman was in fact supposed to be identified to run the National Football Development Project (NFDP) following a meeting of which I was involved in with the France Football Federation (FFF) technical director Gerard Houllier.

It was sometime in late July or early August 2010 that I placed a call to Houllier’s mobile phone, having been given the mandate to call him on behalf of the National Sports Council (NSC), as owners of NFDP.

I was tasked by Jefri Ngadirin, then head of the football unit in charge of NFDP, to arrange a meeting between a delegation from Malaysia comprising the then Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Datuk Razali Ibrahim and NSC Director-General, the late Datuk Seri Zolkples Embong, and the FFF for a full tour of their renowned academy in Clairefontaine.

Razali’s itinerary in Paris was designed to kill several birds with one stone.

On top of watching the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championship, Razali was also tasked to discuss the issue of the Malaysian Open’s non-premier status in the Super Series circuit. So NSC wanted to fit in a trip to the Clairefontaine academy in the schedule.

Houllier, who returned as FFF technical director after fairly successful stints at Liverpool and Lyon, sounded surprised, or even annoyed with the call from someone he barely knew after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Due to the short notice, the meeting in France, naturally, did not materialise.

While Houllier left the FFF for Aston Villa in September the same year, the Ministry eventually launched NFDP in 2011, with Lim Kim Chon as the project director.

Only in 2016 that the NFDP management, overseen by the then Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, opted for French flavour through the appointment of Saad Ichalelene, a former Paris St Germain (PSG) academy coach, as the head of methodology.

Five of his players at PSG – Alphonse Areola, Christophe Nkunku, Adrien Rabiot, Matteo Guendouzi and Presnel Kimpembe – were on Wednesday named in the 25-man France squad bound for the World Cup in Qatar.

Despite failing to accomplish the task, obtaining Houllier’s mobile number in the first place was quite memorable – it occurred only on the third occasion of our rendezvous which spanned 13 years.

Our first meeting in 1997 took place while he was resting on the sofa at the French team hotel in Shah Alam ahead of the FIFA World Cup Under-20 quarter-final clash against Uruguay.

He brushed aside my question on the speculation linking him to the England FA job with the retort “who told you?”.

In 2005, Houllier was the guest speaker at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) symposium as he shared some interesting anecdotes and insights into developing a winning team.

Third time lucky five years later, I managed to create enough impression after taking the trouble to catch Houllier on three occasions during the Asean Football Federation (AFF) seminar for technical directors.

When a friend proposed for the Sports Ministry and FAM to take advantage of Houllier’s presence in Malaysia, I coordinated the meeting to discuss a potential collaboration between NFDP and FFF.

So with the assistance of the AFC, I arranged for the high-powered meeting with Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek (Sports Minister) and Zolkples which was also attended by the then FAM general secretary Datuk Seri Azzuddin Ahmad.

By then, Houllier had gotten to know me better as we exchanged information on Liverpool, PSG, Lyon and France in general.

To my delight, Houllier penned an autograph for me with a few words on the chapter dedicated to him, written by Andy Thompson in Le Foot – The Legends of French Football. He then had no qualms sharing his mobile number.

Long after I had driven home, only then reality set in – that one of the world’s most respected coaches was only a phone call away.

The writer remains in touch with Le Roy, who recommended George Weah to Arsene Wenger and later guided Cameroon to the 1998 World Cup.