[MENTION=23081]Bulgroz[/MENTION] as a Ligue 1 watcher and Bordeaux fan, what's your opinion of Laurent Blanc? And how about Rudi Garcia? I mean, Garcia made Lille a championship-team with Hazard as the main man, contended with Roma for a couple of years, and has taken Marseille to the Europa League final, so I think he's an excellent coach. I see that Marseille is struggling at the moment, however. Do you know why that is?
Short answer: I don't think neither Garcia nor Blanc would be good enough for Barca.
Garcia did some really good work for Lille and Rome, and his debut for Marseille seemed promising. But right now he's struggling with basically the same team as last year + Strootman and - Zambo Anguissa (which should have been a huge improvement). Marseille fans aren't too happy with him right now. Can't say I follow this club really well, so most of what I'm going to say is things I've gathered from chats with friends of mine/people on another forum:
- He mostly looked for another midfielder instead of a good striker (they only have Mitroglou and Germain, who are both very average);
- He keeps on changing his starting line-up, thus preventing any kind of virtuous circle from forming;
- He's a pain in the ass with referees, which makes him look like a huge prick both during games and afterwards
More importantly, there was a video quite recently made by a journalist (Romain Molina) who pointed out the fact that Garcia and his entourage might meddle in oscure fees on player transfers. Haven't seen the video, but apparently Marseille overpayed Strootman (for example) because of that.
All in all they're grateful for his debuts because his (relative) fame probably helped them get a few big names to sign (Mandanda and Payet coming back, Luiz Gustavo, Strootman...) but now they want someone who can really create something new.
As for Blanc, I'm much more of a specialist.
Bordeaux fans have really mixed feelings about him. His incredible first 2 years and a half got tarnished by his awful 6 last months, which ended up screwing us up big time on the long run. Many fans actually tend to underestimate what he acheived here because of that.
It's true that his successes in Bordeaux have a lot to do with the work done by Ricardo before him. Several of our key players during the 2009 title were players recruited (mostly for a very cheap price) by the brazilian (Fernando Menegazzo, Wendel, Cavenaghi, Jussie), or home grown players who got a starting spot thanks to him (Chamakh, Planus). But I think most of our fans minimize what Blanc brought, recruiting key elements (he insisted on getting Gourcuff, Souleymane Diawara, and Carrasso), and turning a good team into a possession fueled winning machine. He had some great results (including our first title in 10 years), and a very nice run in UCL (1st of a group which included Bayern and Juve, with 5 wins and 1 draw, reaching the quarter finals lost by one goal against Lyon).
We were leading Ligue 1, and many people kinda expected us to be the new Lyon (whose run of 7 titles in a row just ended because of us). But if all fell apart in a few month, when he pulled a reversed-Lopetegui. Rumor had it that he was going to be France's next coach, players (several of them having joined because of Blanc) started feeling shaky and unsure about their future, and we went from 1st of the league with something like a 10 points margin to 6th at the end of the season. He completely failed to remotivate his team, partly because they all knew he was already gone. The worst part is that he insisted on signing new contracts for most of our players, witch pretty high wages which were ok for a team playing UCL, but way too expensive for a team without any european competition. The club struggled for several years because of that (and it's still struggling). Blanc's ambition could have been a good thing, but since he kinda dumped us after such a terrible season, it ended up being terrible for Bordeaux.
His run at the head of France NT was "meh". Nothing spectacular, but he had less talent to use than Deschamps right now, obviously. But I think most people remember him for his utterly bad line-up against Spain, playing with 2 RB on the side (Reveillère as a RB, and Debuchy as a winger). All in all, he didn't fail spectacularly, but he just brought nothing to the table during important games. There was hardly a moment when we thought we could outplay better than us.
In Paris, he was rather impressive in France, but again pretty useless in UCL. And the very few times he tried something new (like against City, playing a brand new 3-5-2 with Aurier as a CB), he failed miserably. But his biggest failure was the utter lack of respect by his players (and by Nasser). It was already rather obvious, but it became crystal clear when Aurier (clearly not a Nobel prize, by the way) got caught on social media (Periscope) answering fans questions without knowing anyone could record it, and saying, among other things, that Blanc was sucking Zlatan's dick, and that he was a fag. Now, in any normal team, Aurier would have been kicked out of the team. But apparently Nasser likes him, so he just got sent to PSG B for a few games, and played again in UCL quart finals against City (terrible game) just a couple months after that. Now, you can argue that it says more about PSG as a club or as Nasser as a President than about Blanc as a coach. To me, it says a lot about all of them: a true european giant (Bayern Barca, Real, Juve...) would have fired the player instantly. A good President would have stood by its coach. But a strong coach would have left the player with PSG B till the end of the season, and would have simply left the club at the end of it if his president didn't want to sell or fire the player (and, arguably, a really strong coach would never have been disrespected by his player like that in the first place).
So, no, I don't see how Blanc would be a good fit.