Zambia coach Renard: Nothing will change me

By Peter Auf der Heyde Feb 10, 2012, 14:20 GMT

Libreville, Gabon - Zambia coach Herve Renard is certain that winning Sunday's final of the Africa Cup of Nations will not change him.

The team from southern Africa face Ivory Cost in the championship match in the Stade de l'Amitie looking for their first-ever title at the showpiece of African football.

The 43-year-old Frenchman said Thursday that taking on the overwhelming favourites Ivory Coast in the final was not the hardest thing that he has faced in his life.

'When I started my coaching career, I was in charge of an amateur third division club. At the same time I had a cleaning business. I used to get up at three in the morning and clean properties and put out the rubbish bins.

'I did that for eight years and that was hard. So every day I remember that and that was much harder than anything that I have ever faced in my football career.

'So no, if we win the cup, I will not change. I will remember those days of getting up at three in the morning and I will remember that that was hard.'

Renard, who returned to the Zambian side in 2011 for his second spell in charge of the side after having previously coached them from 2008 to 2010 said that he considered the success that he was having with the team as revenge.

'I was severely criticized the first time when I was Zambian coach. I have to prove myself all the time and this is now like revenge for me.

'Being a football coach is just about hot and cold. There is no middle ground. And it changes all the time. Look at Senegal coach Amara Traore.

'Going into the Africa Cup of Nations he was a fantastic coach they all said and then when they lost he was suddenly useless. That can't be.

'I don't even read what is written about me,' he said.

'For me coaching is about emotions. If I can have something like we will have on Sunday, that is why I am a coach.

'This is my third Africa Cup of Nations and I love this competition. I was coaching in Algeria, had a long contract and was earning more money, but I had a clause in my contract to say that I could leave at any time for a national team.

'I put that in because I love coaching at the Africa Cup.'

Renard had a short stint as Cambridge United coach and he said coaching in England at that level was the most difficult job he ever had.

'I could not speak English and I had no translator. That was very difficult. Coaching in England is very tough, it must be the most difficult place to coach,' he said.

'But if I could stand with Arsene Wenger and coach that would be terrific.'

He jokingly said that, however, he did not want to be considered for the England job. 'I don't have the standard to replace Capello...yet.'

But should he win the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday, he will have moved a step closer to that level, even if he himself does not think so.

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