Frenchman Patrice Lagisquet will leave the technical management of the Portuguese rugby team after the France 2023 World Cup, the coach confirmed to the Lusa agency on Wednesday, after the first training in preparation for the meeting with Fiji.
“It is a decision that has been made for some time and communicated to the Portuguese Rugby Federation (FPR) and the players. I was invited to continue but I had already promised my family that I would retire from rugby after the World Cup. ” he unveiled Patrice Lagisquet, at the Parc des Sports in Perpignan.
Contacted by the Lusa agency, the president of FPR, Carlos Amado da Silva, confirmed that the coach had already communicated his decision “even before the World Cup” and said that the future of the technical mastery of the Portuguese national team is being taken into account . “.
Lagisquet was announced as coach in July 2019, succeeding Martim Aguiar in the role, a few days after Portugal secured its return to the European Championship with a victory over Germany, 37–32, in a play-off played in Frankfurt, Germany.
Despite Portugal having spent the last three years in the ‘Trophy’, the second European tier of the sport, excluding the Six Nations tournament, the coach immediately defined qualification for the 2023 World Cup in France as his goal.
“If I didn’t believe that qualification is possible, I wouldn’t even be in Lisbon. I only need two years, maybe less, to maximize the qualities of the Portuguese players,” Lagisquet said on the day of his presentation.
Under the leadership of Patrice Lagisquet, Portugal qualified for the World Cup for the second time in its history, following Wolves’ first participation in the competition, also in France, in 2007.
The coach, who turned 61 exactly a month ago, on September 4, also finished second at the European Championship this year, in March, after losing the final of the old ‘Six Nations B’ against Georgia in Badajoz.
Former France international, with 46 appearances for Les Bleus, Lagisquet managed as coach Biarritz between 1997 and 2007 and returned to the club in 2011/12 as general manager, before taking over the training of the French team’s back lines as an assistant took. to Philippe Saint-André, between 2012 and 2015.
As head coach, he became Top 14 champion with Biarritz in 2002, 2005 and 2006, the year in which he also became European second for clubs. In 2012, as the club’s general manager, he won the Challenge Cup, the sport’s second most important European club competition.
As a player he finished second in the world in 1987, lost the final of that first edition of the World Cup to New Zealand, and won the Five Nations tournament (currently Six Nations) in 1988 (formerly with Wales) and in 1989.
Source: DN
