After the surprise resignation of Julien Stéphan on Monday, Rennes quickly reacted and activated its plan G. Even if they had also probed Jocelyn Gourvennec and Rémi Garde to succeed Stéphan, the Breton leaders have, according to information from L'Equipe, decided to entrust the team to Bruno Genesio.
The former coach of Lyon and the Chinese club Beijing Guoan will engage with Rennes.
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If Genesio met Nicolas Holveck, the Breton delegate president, and François Pinault, the owner of the club, it was a third man who tipped the scales in his favor: Florian Maurice, the Rennes sports director.
The latter is close to Genesio with whom he played and who was a recruiter at OL when Genesio was his coach.
Keep Rennes in the top 5
At first, Genesio, whose agent is the same as Neymar, Pini Zahavi, was not really excited about the idea of taking over a club during the season.
His wish, after his trip to China, was to return to France, but he preferred to wait until June.
Especially since his name had been widely whispered for several months on the side of Montpellier to take over from Michel Der Zakarian.
But it was only a possibility and not a certainty.
Florian Maurice therefore returned to the charge and ended up convincing his friend Bruno Genesio to come and work alongside him in Brittany.
Genesio, who took the head of Lyon on December 24, 2015 after the ouster of Hubert Fournier, was able to straighten out OL that year to lead him to second place in the championship.
His mission in Rennes will be more modest: to keep Stade Rennais just behind the Lille-PSG-Lyon-Monaco quartet.