Following Stéphane Moulin’s announcement that he will walk away from Angers SCO at the end of this season, Ligue1.com looks back at his decade in charge and salutes his remarkable longevity.
As things stand, when Moulin goes the longest-serving coach in Ligue 1 Uber Eats will be Thierry Laurey at RC Strasbourg Alsace, in place since May 2016. Even that is an extraordinarily long time for one man to remain at the helm of a club in one of Europe’s leading leagues these days. Indeed, ten current Ligue 1 clubs have changed coach since the end of last season.
Stéphane Moulin, then, is an exception. He will walk away from the Stade Raymond Kopa at the end of this campaign and, barring an improbable collapse in the coming weeks, he will leave Angers in the top flight for a seventh consecutive season, their longest unbroken stint in the elite since the 1960s.
“Ten years is already magnificent. I was worried that next season would be one too many,” Moulin said in a statement last week.
“Ten years is a long time. Time can be an ally. Longevity can even be a real strength. Sometimes, though, it can become a weakness. I am not at that point, but I didn’t want to get to that point either,” added Moulin.
As he prepares to depart, Moulin deserves to be saluted for the job he has done at the unfashionable club from the Loire Valley. Now aged 53, when he was appointed on a two-year deal in June 2011 Angers had just finished sixth in Ligue 2. To be fair, he was taking over a club with some potential but he had big shoes to fill. His predecessor, Jean-Louis Garcia, had been in charge for the previous five years, winning promotion to the second tier and then establishing Le SCO at that level. They had been within touching distance of promotion to the top flight in Garcia’s last two campaigns and reached the Coupe de France semi-finals in 2011.
Past connection
Moulin already had a connection with Angers. He played for the club in the second tier for six years between 1984 and 1990. He moved into coaching aged just 30 and was at Châtellerault in the amateur leagues for eight seasons before returning to Angers in 2005 to take charge of their reserve team.
In his first season in charge of the first team, Angers finished in the bottom half, but Moulin was given time, such a rare commodity for a coach these days. Eventually, at his fourth attempt, Moulin led Angers to promotion in 2014-15, taking them back to the promised land of the top division for the first time since a solitary season in 1993-94 that ended in relegation. Supporters flooded the pitch in celebration on the night promotion was secured in May 2015.
Consolidation and Cup final
Moulin did not just take Angers to Ligue 1, he kept them there. They finished ninth in their first top-flight season, in 2015-16, their highest league placing since 1974. In the four campaigns since they have always come between 11th and 14th, more than respectable performances for a club with the budget of Angers - even this season, after several years of consolidation in Ligue 1, their total operating budget is believed to be around €45 million, one of the very lowest in the division.
Meanwhile Moulin led the club to to the final of the Coupe de France in 2017, their first final in 60 years. With 20,000 Angers supporters at the Stade de France, they were close to causing a huge upset against Paris Saint-Germain, Nicolas Pépé hitting the post in the first half before a stoppage-time own goal by Issa Cissokho gave PSG a 1-0 win.
The players: Pépé, Toko-Ekambi and more
Moulin can take credit for helping develop a host of talented players during his decade at the helm. Pépé broke through in that 2016-17 season before being sold to LOSC Lille for a reported €10 million. Two years later the Ivory Coast international joined Arsenal for a fee believed to be eight times higher.
That Cup final team also featured Karl Toko-Ekambi, the Cameroon international bought from FC Sochaux-Montbéliard for a reported €1 million and sold to Villarreal for €18 million. Midfielder Baptiste Santamaria was sold last summer to SC Freiburg for a fee understood to be as high as €15 million. Jeff Reine-Adélaïde was sold in 2019 to Olympique Lyonnais for €25 million. Others to have played under Moulin at Angers and moved on include Ivorian striker Jonathan Kodjia, Moroccan defender Romain Saïss, Senegal midfielder Cheikh Ndoye, Rayan Aït-Nouri and Flavien Tait.
Great strides
Moulin has achieved success on the field - despite occasional turbulence at boardroom level - and has allowed the club to take great strides off it. The most visible sign of that is perhaps the Stade Raymond-Kopa itself. Reconstruction work is ongoing on a new stand which, when completed, will raise capacity above 19,000. The work has come at a cost to Angers, believed to be at least €30 million. That has perhaps prevented the club from investing more in the playing squad, but despite that Moulin has maintained a competitive team. Now there are two questions: where will he go next, and how can Angers replace him?
“What is important is that a page is turning and that we are getting to the end of the book, but the page is not torn or ripped out. I don’t think that will be the case. I think this page will take up an important place in the book,” Moulin said, before adding that he did not yet have any plans for the future.
