Rémi Garde

Rémi Garde
Personal information
Full name	Rémi Garde
Date of birth	3 April 1966 (age 58)
Place of birth	L'Arbresle, France
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Defensive midfielder, defender
Senior career*
Years	Team
1987–1993	Lyon
1993–1996	Strasbourg
1996–1999	Arsenal
Total
International career
1990–1992	France
Managerial career
2011–2014	Lyon
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Rémi Garde (French pronunciation: [ʁemi ɡaʁd], born 3 April 1966) is a French professional football coach and former player. During his career he won several honours, including the 1997–98 FA Premier League Championship, and was capped by the France national team.

Club career

Garde started his playing career at Lyon in 1982, helping the club achieve promotion to Ligue 1 in 1989. Playing as a defensive midfielder or sweeper, he became club captain and made his debut for France against Kuwait in January 1990. In all he won six caps for his country, and was a member of the French squad at Euro 92. Garde left Lyon in 1993 to join Strasbourg, where he spent three seasons and reached a Coupe de France final in 1995. Garde moved to England in August 1996, joining Arsenal after Arsène Wenger recommended him to the club; Wenger was not Arsenal's manager at this stage, as he was seeing out his contract at Nagoya Grampus.

Garde joined on the same day as Patrick Vieira, though unlike Vieira, the 30-year-old Garde was intended to be more of an experienced cover player rather than a future first-team regular. Garde became known for his tidy and reliable performances as backup for Vieira or Emmanuel Petit; he played a total of 43 matches over three seasons for Arsenal, and was a member of the Double-winning side of 1997–98, making 10 league appearances that season meaning only narrowly qualified for a Premier League winners' medal. He also made one appearance during Arsenal's FA Cup run, which came in the quarter final replay at West Ham United. The game went to a penalty shootout and despite Garde missing his kick, Arsenal prevailed.^[1] He was however not part of the squad as they won the 1998 FA Cup Final. With age and a persistent knee injury limiting his appearances, Garde retired from professional football in June 1999, just after he had narrowly missed out on a second successive double with the club; who had finished second in the league and lost the FA Cup semi-final to Manchester United.

Coaching career

After a period working as a pundit on French television, he rejoined his old club Lyon as a coach in 2003, and helped the club to win Ligue 1 titles in 2003–04 and 2004–05. After the departure of Paul Le Guen in the summer of 2005, Garde became assistant to his replacement Gérard Houllier. In May 2007, with his contract as Assistant manager to Gérard Houllier due to expire at the club. Garde had been linked to a return to his former club in the new Director of football position at Arsenal, a role created to replace that of the recently departed Vice-Chairman David Dein. In 2010, he worked as the director of the Centre Tola Vologe. On 22 June 2011, he was appointed as Lyon's new manager to replace Claude Puel.^[2]^[3] and left at the end of the 2013/14 season for personal reasons.^[4] After a period out of the game Garde is being heavily linked with the vacant managers position at Aston Villa following the departure of Tim Sherwood.^[5]