OUR French trainer, Herve Renard, the man behind Tuesday’s historic surprise. His team S.Arabia beat them 2-1 (and even with a draft). Argentina Messi and all sports spotlights have already fallen on them.

The 54-year-old technician, born in Aix-les-Bains in southeastern France, has achieved nothing as a defender. What … as a player he lacked, however, he tried himself in coaching and, in fact, in … barren football on the African continent.

Taking his first… lessons in distant China as an assistant to Claude Le Roy at Shanghai Cosco, after the French Draguinian, he tried his luck in England and Cambridge, but fate took him to countries far from the football scene.

After a brief stint in Vietnam, he returned home to Cherbourg, but his new partnership with Le Roy in the Ghana national team paved the way for a long career at the national level. In 2008, he led Zambia on his own and for the first time in their history led it to the final stage of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations.

In 2011, he will again lead the same team with which he won the African Cup in 2012 against Côte d’Ivoire on penalties.

The Elephants will demand it and partner with it. The West African nation would win the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations with him in the final against Ghana. Guess how? In the penalty shootout…

In the same year, he will try his luck in Lille, but fail miserably, and in 2016 he will lead Morocco, which in 20 years will lead to the final phase of the 2018 World Cup.

On Tuesday at noon, Herve Renard again improved his game with Saudi Arabia against Argentina. The Greens looked into the eyes of the Albiseleste with masterful tuning, strength and passion, who seems to have lost all the Latin elements that she had in her game.

Slow, predictable, incoherent and rather empty mentally, he threw in the white towel as soon as the Saudis made it 2-1.

Coach Hervé Renard, African football legend, has performed his miracle again, this time with an Arab team. Nobody knows where it will end. Who he is, you can… refer to his former players who are in Greece or have gone through it. Sidibé, Amrabado, El Arabi, Gervinho, Yaya Toure, Bacabu, Ensikulu, Abdul Kamara, Djalma Campos and others will surely have something to say about him…