Who is Christophe Galtier? All you need to know about PSG new manager

Christophe Galtier is not particularly well-known outside of his native France but that is about to change.

The 55-year-old is set to replace Mauricio Pochettino and become the new Paris Saint-Germain manager.

Galtier will be the man tasked with taming the likes of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe to turn a cluster of stars into the best team on Planet Soccer.

But Who Is Christophe Galtier?

Playing Career

Galtier was a defender in his playing career, which lasted from 1985 to 1999 and included spells at Marseille, Lille, Toulouse, Angers, Nimes, Monza and Liaoning.

He did not win any major silverware as a player but gained a wealth of experience which made him a prime candidate to go into coaching.

Coaching Career

Galtier wasted no time in starting his coaching career and joined Marseille as an assistant coach in 1999 – the same year he stopped playing.

After holding similar positions at Aris and Bastia, he became Alain Perrin’s assistant manager in 2004 and would follow him from Al Ain to Portsmouth to Sochaux to Lyon and then Saint-Etienne.

But when Perrin left Saint-Etienne in 2009 Galtier replaced him as manager, rather than going with him.

Management Career

Galtier’s first job in management would go on to last nearly eight years as he stayed in the Saint-Etienne hot-seat until May 2017 – four years after winning the Coupe de la Ligue in 2013.

After finishing in 17th at the end of his first season, Galtier led Saint-Etienne to 10th, seventh, fifth, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth before standing down.

Having taken charge of Saint-Etienne midway through a relegation battle, Galtier did the same with Lille in December 2017.

He arrived with Nice 18th and guided them to safety by one point. A year later, in his first full season, Lille finished second and qualified for the Champions League.

Galtier will largely be judged at PSG on what his team does in the Champions League but his record in the competition to date is not good.

His Lille team took just one point from six group games in the 2019/20 campaign, losing home and away to Chelsea and Ajax, with their only draw coming against Valencia.