Former cleaner behind soaring Golden Falcons at World Cup

PETALING JAYA: We all know about the swashbuckling fightback by Saudi Arabia in the second half against Argentina on Thursday.

Without it, we might never have seen the video in which the fiery, prowling Saudi coach Herve Renard gave his team, down 1-0 at half-time, a dressing down in the locker room.

In his stirring team talk, the Frenchman asked his players if they just wanted to take a picture with Lionel Messi during play.

Renard snapped: “Messi, he has the ball in the middle of the pitch and you stand in front of the defence … you have to go and mark him in the middle. Take your phone, you can take a picture with him!

“You don’t feel we are able to come back? You don’t feel it? You play relaxed. Come on guys, this is the World Cup. Give everything. Move yourselves. Come on.”

He roused his team to change body language, raise energy levels and get closer to Messi.

In the second half, his team scored twice early to secure a colossal upset, inscribing him and the Golden Falcons in World Cup history.

After pulling off the stunning revival, midfielder Abdulelah al-Malki told The Guardian: “We have a crazy coach. He motivated us at half-time, telling us stuff that made us want to eat the grass.”

Today (9pm Malaysian time), the Green Falcons will hang on to every word by Renard when they face Robert Lewandowski and his Poland team.

Goals by Al-Shehri and Salem Al-Dawsari against Argentina blew open Group C after veteran Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa saved Lewandowski’s penalty in the second half to keep the game goalless.

A win for Saudi Arabia will earn them a place in the second round and that would be an incredible achievement for a side with no foreign-based players.

A Poland win will leave both teams on three points with all to play for in their final games in Group C. Poland face Argentina four days later, while Saudi Arabia will play Mexico.

Who’s this 54-year-old coach, with matinee idol looks, who has got the Golden Falcons soaring?

At the end of a 15-year-long career as a defender playing for small clubs in France, Renard had to work as a cleaner to make ends meet while coaching minor league teams.

In between training sessions, he took out bins and kept an apartment block in order. He then set up his own cleaning company while getting his coaching licences.

His managerial career included stints at Cambridge United (England), where he first arrived in 2004 as assistant to globetrotting veteran Claude Le Roy, and at Shanghai Cosco (China), Nam Dinh (Vietnam) and AS Cherbourg (France).

Renard went on to achieve great success as the first coach to win the Africa Cup of Nations with different teams, Zambia and Ivory Coast.