With hindsight, Vladimir Petkovic's tenure at the head of the Girondins de Bordeaux did not start in the best of ways.
A month almost to the day after the elimination of the Blues by Switzerland at the Euro, the Girondins announced the arrival of the Swiss coach with a video montage focused on the exploit of the Nati.
Six months later, the acknowledgment of failure is just as palpable for the club with the scapular, 19th in Ligue 1 after a new rout in Reims (5-0), inevitably fatal to the technician, laid off this Monday morning.
And this sidelining of the Swiss coach between 2014 and 2021, in the air for several weeks, is explained by much more than a negative return of "karma".
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Calendar and results Ligue 1
League 1 standings
From an accounting point of view, the finding is implacable.
Penultimate in Ligue 1, two points ahead of Saint-Etienne, the other monument in danger which nevertheless finds colors, Bordeaux seems not to have touched the bottom that it is still digging.
The slap received in Reims, against a team not known either for its offensive standards (16th attack in Ligue 1 before this champagne Sunday), accentuated the feeling of a team in full decline.
And it is not the spectacular victory against Strasbourg two weeks earlier (4-3) which will therefore have restarted the machine.
Read alsoLigue 1: Bordeaux explodes in Reims, Nice falls against Clermont
“
I didn't think we were so bad mentally, we suffered so much for 90 minutes.
I think the group has always reacted well but today we lacked everything, we didn't have the right reaction
”, regretted the Bordeaux coach on Sunday in what will remain as his last press conference.
A last where the one who always spoke in Italian did not depart from an almost disconcerting phlegm in view of the catastrophic situation in which he (actively) participated in plunging the centenary club.
Vladimir Petkovic (center here in Reims) has appeared increasingly lonely as the weeks go on.
Panoramic
Worst defense of the five major leagues
To top it off, the problems do not end there for the new Girondin management, which must find common ground with the native of Sarajevo, who was earning some 280,000 euros monthly until 2024. He has moreover reiterated in Reims his refusal to offer his resignation to Gérard Lopez, who saw in the former coach of Lazio (2012-2014) the suitable technician to register in the long term and restore greatness to the club after a 2020-2021 financial year already complicated (12th but maintained very late).
But as the weeks passed, the specter of casting error turned into irrefutable reality, as the club went downhill on a weekly basis.
Read alsoLigue 1: Petkovic laid off by Bordeaux
A series of routs which have been linked since the end of November and a loss at home against Brest (1-2, November 28), followed three days later by a first slap in Strasbourg (5-2, December 1).
And the grounds for hope born of the draw against Lyon (2-2, December 5) and the success at Troyes (1-2, December 12) were quickly swept away by a return to competition disrupted by a cluster of Covid-19 (21 absent in Brest, 3-0 defeat in the Cup).
But the ax was especially close during the rout in Rennes, where Bordeaux had been tossed around in the wide widths (6-0, January 16).
"
Sometimes I think an electric shock can happen by giving players confidence, that's why I didn't change anyone at halftime
," explained the Swiss technician, constantly more passive than proactive in his choices. .
Not always quick to take responsibility for the slaps received by the worst defense in the five major European leagues (58 goals), Petkovic seemed let go by a locker room already won over by the jolts of sidelining executives like Laurent Koscielny or Otavio.
“
The coach has lost his group
,” confided an intimate of the group to AFP on Sunday evening.
The man of the end of the series against Marseille
However, the Bordeaux decision-makers, under the leadership of the new sports director, had taken care to strengthen a bruised group with a mixture of experience (Guilavogui, Marcelo) and potential (Ahmedhodzic, Ignatenko).
Excluded less than ten minutes after entering the game in Reims, the last city, preceded by an unflattering reputation as a very (too?) hard player, will have to work hard to prevent the management from making another casting error.
"
With the new guys, there was a lot of insecurity in the group, which shouldn't happen,
" Petkovic said on Sunday.
I told the players that we could cry until Tuesday but we have to look up to get out of this abyss
.
But it is without him that the Girondin workforce will have to turn the page on the lowest total of victories (4) for more than half a century (52 years).
An unflattering legacy which could however be eclipsed by the first defeat at home against OM for 44 years (0-1, January 7).
Certainly not helped by the circumstances (Covid-19), Petkovic had then entered a little more into the history of the Girondins de Bordeaux.
Just not the way he hoped.