The Morocco manager’s stint in League Two with Cambridge ended in failure but those who played under him there speak highly of a man ahead of his time

On the April cover of the Moroccan edition of Hello! (Hola! Maroc), Hervé Renard looks completely at home. At the centre of a glamorous photoshoot, standing beside his partner, Viviane Dièye (the widow of the former Senegal manager Bruno Metsu), he beams at the camera with his sandy locks, deep tan and trademark white shirt beside a telling quote: “In Africa I feel free. This continent has brought me exceptional recognition, I don’t think I can live anywhere else.”

Morocco World Cup 2018 team guide: tactics, key players and expert predictions Read more

Africa is where the Frenchman made his name. He remains the only manager to have won the Africa Cup of Nations with two countries: unfancied Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015. The Moroccan Football Association’s decision to make Renard the continent’s highest-paid manager in 2016 was vindicated when he guided the north African country to their first World Cup finals since France 98.

All of which is very much at odds with his short stint as Cambridge United manager in 2004. Appointed with one game left in the 2003-04 season in Division Three – what is now League Two – he won five and lost 14 of his 26 matches. He was sacked in December 2004 and Cambridge ended that season relegated from the Football League, in administration, with their ground sold to a director. Despite numerous attempts to buy it back, the club still pay rent at the Abbey Stadium.

Yet there is overwhelming positivity from players of that era about Renard, who brought in training techniques and a nutrition regime never previously seen in England’s fourth tier.

Hervé Renard poses on the cover of Hola! Maroc

One of the first things Renard did was promote John Ruddy to his number-one goalkeeper. “Hervé was a massive part of my career because I don’t think many managers would have given a 17-year-old the opportunity, especially as I had only started going in goal at 14,” Ruddy says. “Not only was I inexperienced at first-team level but also in goalkeeping terms in general. The first 15 minutes of my debut I could hardly take a goal-kick I was that nervous, but Hervé was very good at making you feel like you were good enough.” Ruddy saved a penalty that day and Cambridge won 1-0, with his subsequent performances earning him a trial at Manchester United and a £250,000 move to Everton.

Renard had come to Cambridge under the wing of Claude Le Roy – who led Cameroon to the Africa Cup of Nations in 1988 – but assumed control when Le Roy departed a few games in. “The translation part of it was difficult but he was always very animated on the training ground and very determined to make sure people knew exactly what was expected of them,” Ruddy recalls. “I think the way he wanted to play at the time was very different to what was ever tried in League Two and would probably be more suited to today’s styles.”

Renard put a huge emphasis on possession-based football. Without the ball, forwards were expected to lead a high press, winning possession as quickly as possible. Fitness was paramount and his conditioning regime became notorious.

“I think the way he wanted to play at the time was very different to what was ever tried in League Two” John Ruddy

“One of the biggest memories I have of Hervé is the work rate not only he demanded of us but also showed himself in the gym,” says Ruddy, who was promoted to the Premier League with Wolves last season. “The pre-season under him was and still is the hardest one I have ever done.

“Hervé used to have us in the gym doing planks for two minutes and I remember shaking like a dog. All he was doing was laughing and shouting: ‘Come on John!’ He used to do crunches for five-minute sets, too, and was in exceptional shape himself. It looks like he still is.”

“He could run seven or eight miles a day no problem,” says Shane Tudor, the club’s joint-top scorer that season. “His body was like a Greek god.”

Cambridge’s captain at the time, Andy Duncan, remembers “training three times a day, on the pitch at 6am”, and Tudor talks of “training in the evenings sometimes, to try and replicate an evening match”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tougher times for Renard at Cambridge in 2004. Photograph: Tony O'Brien/Action Images

The striker Jermaine Easter, who went on to play for Crystal Palace and Millwall, was full of praise for Renard. “Hervé was doing things in 2004 that I didn’t do with other managers until five or six years later. He was on another level in terms of fitness and nutrition. There were no sauces so the food was quite bland but it helped getting the lads’ fat percentage down. There was a lot of sport science involved, before it became a thing.”

So why didn’t Renard’s revolution produce results? Tudor’s responses is unapologetic: “The players weren’t good enough and he didn’t know the league, so he was bringing French players over that weren’t capable.”

One example was Sully Seychelles, a striker who announced on his arrival: “I’m good with my feet and model myself on Thierry Henry. I’ve seen English defences on television and am looking forward to it.” He failed to make an appearance.

World Cup 2018: complete guide to all 736 players Read more

Such dealings did not help the club’s financial plight; players had to buy their own shirts in which to play. Steve Thompson, who succeeded Renard as manager, says: “The club was in turmoil. I didn’t realise the enormity of the situation. One of the players asked me if he could have a long-sleeved shirt, because he’d had to decide at the start of the season between a long- or short-sleeve.”

Intersecting Renard’s international success, there have been other poor club spells in France: he was sacked by Lille in 2015 after 13 games and relegated from Ligue 1 with Sochaux in 2014.

At international level, with greater resources and no transfer market, Renard’s strengths are magnified. Even in a World Cup group containing Spain and Portugal, with the former Coventry midfielder Mustapha Hadji as his assistant, there are genuine hopes that he can guide Morocco to the knockout stages. It is a far cry from defeats by Halifax Town and Boston United.