Back to the Future for Franck Haise at Rennes
Franck Haise wasn't out of the game for long. Having left OGC Nice back in December, the Frenchman has quickly bounced back... and he finds himself in familiar surroundings.
Back to where it began
"There weren't many clubs that would have made me emerge from my break," said Haise at his presentation earlier this week. But the proposition to manage Stade Rennais was too tempting. He is back in familiar surroundings, sporting a familiar kit. Haise previously had a stint as a manager in Rennes' academy between 2006 and 2012.
Since then, his career has hit great heights. He was the architect of Lens' rise from Ligue 2 BKT and back into Ligue 1 McDonald's. Soon after that promotion, he had Les Sang et Or competing in the top half of the table, right at the top half in fact, as back in 2023, his side ran PSG close for the title. Ultimately, Lens would finish just one point behind Les Parisiens, but the feat would see Haise named Ligue 1 McDonald's manager of the season.
Having led Lens back into the UEFA Champions League, he would opt for a change of scenery in 2024, trading the north for the south, joining Nice. In his only full season with Les Aiglons, Haise guided the club to a fourth-place finish in Ligue 1 McDonald's, sufficient for a place in the UCL qualifiers.
𝗘𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 🫡
De retour à la Piverdière, Franck Haise aux commandes de son premier entraînement avec les Rouge et Noir 📍 pic.twitter.com/kEQ1FqE9uE— Stade Rennais F.C. (@staderennais) February 18, 2026
However, his side would come unstuck at the first hurdle, losing to Benfica, and so would have to settle for another year in the UEFA Europa League. But it was a difficult season for Nice and for Haise, amid changes at the executive level of the club, and he would leave the club in December.
Haise sought a bit of time out of the game, having had so little time to breathe in recent seasons, but the temptation of returning to a club where he spent so many years in the formative period of his managerial career, as well as that of working with some familiar faces, in the form of SRFC president Arnaud Pouille, most notably, was too great.
Haise outlines European ambition
And he inherits a club that is right in the thick of it in the race for European football. "Pressure in a Ligue 1 McDonald's club like Rennes is logical. It is legitimate to have the ambition of playing in Europe. I am coming in with a lot of desire and a lot of energy," said the predecessor of Habib Beye, now in the dugout in Marseille.
Haise has become an emblematic coach of this decade of Ligue 1 McDonald's and, reinvigorated, he will look to have led a third club into Europe by the end of the season.
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