Beaten 4-0 at Auxerre, Stade Rennais waited until Thursday to notify Julien Stéphan of his dismissal. Negotiations with Jorge Sampaoli, former Argentina national coach and Marseille coach, among others, seem close to being concluded, but probably not soon enough for him to be on the bench on Sunday.

On Friday, it was Sébastien Tambouret, usually in charge of the reserves, who appeared before the press without any formal assurance that he would still be in charge on Sunday. “We’re preparing as if we’ll be there on Sunday”.he replied. “Today, we’re on a short-term, (a) bit of an emergency mission, with a match in two days’ time. We know that in two days’ time, we have to do things right”.he added. This highly unartistic vagueness now seems to be the hallmark of a club that has totally lost its direction in recent months.

A year of slow decline

Bruno Genesio’s cryptic comments during his last few weeks as coach, to the effect that not everyone at the club was pulling in the same direction, had set the alarm bells ringing. The parachuting in of Julien Stéphan in his place almost exactly a year ago, directly ordered by the owners against the advice of president Olivier Cloarec and sporting director Florian Maurice, with whom Stéphan had not got on since his first stint, added to the turmoil. Maurice’s departure in the summer may have seemed to give Stéphan some comfort, but it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Weakened by a poor end to the season, he found himself in an already precarious situation when Franco-Italian Frederic Massara took over as sporting director. After a flamboyant start to the season against Lyon (3-0), the initial difficulties and apparent tactical procrastination only made the situation worse, until Olivier Cloarec’s dismissal, replaced by Arnaud Pouille in early October, put him in the front line and removed any room for error. Ironically, Stéphan’s dismissal came exactly seven years after the arrival at Rennes of Olivier Létang as executive chairman – following the sacking of the pairing of chairman René Ruello and coach Christian Gourcuff – which marked the start of a golden era for the Red and Blacks, punctuated by a French Cup victory and six consecutive European seasons, including one in the Champions League.

A burst of pride at the very least

For the moment, there’s no real sign that Rennes are on the verge of rediscovering their magic formula. The coaches considered more or less seriously – Igor Tudor, Patrick Vieira, Rudi Garcia, Habib Beye, Niko Kovac – show that even the profile sought was not so clearly defined. Until this hunt for the rare pearl is settled, and even if it will take another ten days or so for the new coach to take charge, Rennes cannot afford to write off the forthcoming match.

Thirteenth in the table and just a point clear of the red zone, Rennes host a Toulouse side who have finally got their season off to a flying start since the last international break, with a draw and two consecutive wins. Rennes will need much more than a surge of pride to get back on track with their European ambitions, but in the short term and given the urgency of the situation, if that’s not enough on Sunday, the future coach’s mission will be almost impossible.