Hard to bet against Renard’s Morocco reaching quarterfinals

With his beautifully pressed white shirts, his flowing locks and his handsome features, Herve Renard sometimes looks more set up for a film set than a coaching career in football.

Yet the current Morocco coach is compiling a CV well worthy of a Leicester City-style Hollywood script, as he leads the Atlas Lions into their challenge for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.

Renard (left) became the first coach ever to win Africa Cup of Nations titles with two different countries when he finally helped secure the golden generation of Ivorian football a continental crown to show for their efforts in Equatorial Guinea in 2015.

That added to the miracle he pulled off with Zambia in 2012, when they stunned the Ivory Coast in Libreville to lift the title against the odds.

Renard was back in Gabon last night, this time with Morocco in Oyem, as they took on DR Congo in their Afcon 2017 Group D opener. Also in the group are Renard’s old side, the reigning champions the Ivory Coast and Togo, with striker Emmanuel Adebayor still in tow.

It is hard to bet against Morocco reaching at least the quarterfinals with Renard in charge. The Frenchman was once a garbage collector and his early coaching career does look rather rubbish, a sacking at English lower-tier side Cambridge United followed by a stint in Vietnam.

But it is in Africa that Renard’s journey really took off – he was an assistant to Claude le Roy with Ghana before he took Zambia to the quarterfinals of the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola in 2010, and then to glory in 2012.

The Zambian victory did have something mystical about it, with the whole 2012 squad paying a visit before the final to the site in Gabon where 18 Chipolopolo players had been killed in a place crash in 1993.

Renard will come up against Le Roy in Gabon, as the latter is now coach of Togo.

“Without him (Le Roy), I would never have had this journey in Africa. Without him, I would never have discovered this continent. I have gained confidence in this continent. What I like in an African Cup is to see supporters of different teams dancing together in the stadium. It’s all this folklore, this celebration around football that makes football more beautiful,” Renard told football365.fr ahead of the 2017 competition.