| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1960-02-09)9 February 1960 (age 66) | ||
| Place of birth | Maubeuge, France | ||
| Position | Defender | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1970–1974 | Villiers-Siré-Nicole | ||
| 1974–1978 | Valenciennes | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1978–1982 | Valenciennes | 93 | (6) |
| 1982–1988 | Lens | 158 | (10) |
| 1988–1989 | Strasbourg | 20 | (2) |
| 1989–1993 | Lens | 90 | (2) |
| 1993 | Mulhouse | 5 | (0) |
| 1993–1996 | Montauban | ||
| Managerial career | |||
| 2005–2007 | Lens | ||
| 2008–2011 | Sochaux | ||
| 2011–2014 | Bordeaux | ||
| 2014–2015 | Shanghai Shenhua | ||
| 2017 | Auxerre | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Francis Gillot (French pronunciation:[fʁɑ̃sisʒilo]; born 9 February 1960) is afootball manager and former player who most recently managedLigue 2 teamAJ Auxerre.
As a player, he was adefender and predominantly associated with his time atValenciennes andLens while having brief periods withStrasbourg as well asMulhouse before ending his career withMontauban. Since retiring he initially moved into youth coaching before moving into assistant management and then gaining his first head coaching position with his former club Lens. He has gone on to manageSochaux and went on to win the2012–13 Coupe de France withBordeaux.
Born inMaubeuge, France, Francis Gillot started his football career playing for the youth team of his local clubVilliers-Siré-Nicole before joining theValenciennes FC academy. At Valencianones he worked his way up into the senior team and in the1978–79 season he started his professional career when he was included in the squad for theLigue 1 outfit.[citation needed] He eventually became a regular starter in the team's defence until they were relegated at the end of the1981–82 French Division 1 season.[citation needed]
In the following season Gillot moved to top-tier clubRC Lens and experienced continental competitions with the club during his initial time with the team until the managerJean Parisseaux decided he could be loan toRC Strasbourg in the1988–89 campaign.[1] Upon his return to Lens the club found themselves in the second tier after experiencing relegation, however Gillot stayed with the team until they won promotion back into the top tier at the end of the1990–91 French Division 2 season.[2] After spending several further seasons with Lens, Gillot was nearing the end of his career and he joined second-tier clubFC Mulhouse for a brief period before ending his career with lower league sideFC Montauban.
After retiring from playing Gillot, soon moved into coaching and joined theFC Sochaux U15 team as a trainer in 1996. He rose to be the team's U19 coach as well as the assistant coach to former head coachesPhilippe Anziani andJean Fernandez. After spending several years with the club he left in 2003 to go abroad to join United Arab Emirates football teamAl Ain FC and be their assistant coach under fellow countrymanBruno Metsu. After spending one season abroad, Gillot returned to France as an assistant toJoël Müller at his former club RC Lens.
At Lens, Gillot was promoted to the team's manager after Joël Müller resigned on 24 January 2005, and for the remainder of the season he guided the club to a seventh-place finish.[3] In his first full season Gillot would impress the fans with his outspokenness, confidence towards youth and offensive play that saw the team move up to fourth and qualification for the2006–07 UEFA Cup.[4] This saw a growing expectation from the fans that the club could achieve more, however the club finished fifth and a point away from qualification for the2007–08 UEFA Champions League.[5] Unable to exceed expectations Gillot resigned on 28 May 2007; however he still remained at the club as a recruiter.
On 2 January 2008, Gillot joined struggling top-tier side Sochaux as their new manager after replacingFrédéric Hantz and in his debut season led the club to safety from the relegation zone. The following season the club would continue to struggle to avoid relegation; however Gillot was offered a two-year contract to remain with the team after avoiding relegation once again Sochaux's results significantly improved in the 2010–11 Ligue 1 campaign, which saw the club finish fifth.[6] Despite the club gaining qualification for the2011–12 UEFA Europa League and Gillot gaining a nomination for French coach of the year award, Gillot decided to publicly declare that he wanted to leave the club.[7] On 5 June 2011, he officially resigned from his post; however he immediately took overBordeaux the following day, leading many from the French media to suspect that Gillot intentionally engineered the move to gain a larger operating budget from his new club and a higher salary.[8]
On 6 June 2011, Gillot was officially signed on as the new head coach of Bordeaux with a two-year contract at the club.[9] In his debut season he guided them to a fifth-place finish and qualification for the2012–13 UEFA Europa League where he led them to the round of 16 before being knocked out byBenfica, 4–2 on aggregate.[10] His reign at the club reached its peak when he won the2012–13 Coupe de France by beatingEvian Thonon Gaillard F.C. 3–2 in the final, which saw him rewarded with a two-year extension to his contract.[11] In the following season, results within the league did not improve and the club were knocked out in the group stages of the2013–14 UEFA Europa League and after a 1–1 draw withOlympique de Marseille on 10 May 2014, he announced that he would be leaving the club at the end of the season.[12]
Gillot was appointed as the new manager ofAJ Auxerre on 1 June 2017.[13] He was sacked on 9 December 2017.[14]
| Season | Club | League | Cups | Europe | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Valenciennes | 1978–79 | French Division 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | - | 4 | 0 |
| 1979–80 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 0 | – | – | 18 | 0 | ||
| 1980-81 | 22 | 2 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 23 | 2 | ||
| 1981-82 | 35 | 2 | 7 | 1 | – | – | 42 | 3 | ||
| 1982–83 | Ligue 2 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 0 | – | – | 16 | 2 | |
| Total | 93 | 6 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 103 | 7 | ||
| Lens | 1982–83 | French Division 1 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 7 | 0 |
| 1983–84 | 19 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 28 | 1 | ||
| 1984–85 | 29 | 3 | 5 | 2 | – | – | 34 | 5 | ||
| 1985–86 | 36 | 2 | 5 | 0 | – | – | 41 | 2 | ||
| 1986–87 | 32 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 41 | 3 | ||
| 1987–88 | 36 | 1 | 6 | 0 | – | – | 42 | 1 | ||
| Total | 158 | 10 | 29 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 193 | 12 | ||
| Strasbourg | 1988–89 | French Division 1 | 20 | 2 | 3 | 0 | – | – | 23 | 2 |
| Lens | 1989–90 | French Division 2 | 27 | 0 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 28 | 0 |
| 1990–91 | 27 | 3 | 6 | 0 | – | – | 33 | 3 | ||
| 1991–92 | French Division 1 | 29 | 2 | 2 | 0 | – | – | 31 | 2 | |
| 1992–93 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | – | 5 | 0 | ||
| Total | 88 | 5 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 97 | 5 | ||
| Mulhouse | 1992–93 | French Division 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 6 | 0 |
| Montauban | 1993–94 | Midi-Pyrénées Division Honneur | 0 | 0 | – | – | 0 | 0 | ||
| 1994–95 | National 3 Group G | 1 | 0 | – | – | 1 | 0 | |||
| 1995–96 | 1 | 0 | – | – | 1 | 0 | ||||
| Total | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | ||||
| Career total | 364 | 23 | 54 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 424 | 26 | ||
| Club | From | To | Record | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | D | L | Win % | |||||
| Lens | 24 January 2005 | 28 May 2007 | 130 | 55 | 42 | 33 | 042.31 | ||
| Sochaux | 2 January 2008 | 5 June 2011 | 148 | 52 | 35 | 61 | 035.14 | ||
| Bordeaux | 6 June 2011 | 23 May 2014 | 148 | 56 | 50 | 42 | 037.84 | ||
| Shanghai Shenhua | 4 December 2014 | 29 November 2015 | 37 | 16 | 8 | 13 | 043.24 | ||
| Auxerre | 1 June 2017 | 9 December 2017 | 19 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 026.32 | ||
| Total | 482 | 184 | 140 | 158 | 038.17 | ||||
Montauban
Lens
Bordeaux