The English press had highlighted the names of Mauricio Pochettino and even that of Zinedine Zidane. But it is an unknown person who is appointed on September 8 on the Chelsea bench to succeed Thomas Tuchel. The former PSG coach was fired on Wednesday due to the poor results of the London club at the start of the season as well as for differences over the club’s sports policy.
His successor is called Graham Potter. He is 46 years old and nobody knows him on this side of the Channel. He trained until the last hours, the Brighton club, current fourth in the Premier League standings. Prior to this promotion, Potter had spent most of his career away from the spotlight of major English stadiums. A left-back from the same generation as the Beckhams and another Southgate, the new Chelsea boss only had one international selection, with the English U21s in 1996. wasn’t going to have the opportunities as a player with a star career. My mother always pushed me to continue my studies and I would like to think that it made me more complete, ”he confided in 2018.
A graduate in social sciences, holder of a master’s degree in leadership and emotional intelligence at the University of Leeds, Graham Potter is first and foremost a footballer with a full head. But his career on the bench after his retirement from sport in 2005 was slow to take off. She started with university teams before he took over the management of a national team: the Ghana women’s team for the 2007 World Cup. The Swedish club Ostersunds then gave him a call to recruit him. . Arrived in January 2011, he stayed there for 7 years. He takes the team in D4, leads it to the first division and even offered it a first coronation with the Swedish Cup in 2017.
Ostersunds retains that he led 224 official matches for 109 wins, 56 draws and 59 defeats. In 2017, the victory in the National Cup allows the small Swedish club to play in the Europa League. Galatasaray released in the preliminary phase pays the price. Ostersunds went to the round of 16 before falling to Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal.
His fate changes on this match and his country remembers him. But then again Potter isn’t taking the most direct path. He returns to train in England but responds to the sirens of a Championship club (D2): Swansea. He remains there for a season before branching off to the south-east of England at Brighton, which has no other ambition in 2019 than to ensure its maintenance in the Premier League. Three years later, Graham Potter leaves the Seagulls (the Seagulls) at the gates of the Champions League. A profile and results that pushed the new owners of Chelsea to take him up another step.