Mickaël Debève (born 1 December 1970) is a French footballer manager and former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

player who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

he is the currently assistant manager Ligue 1 club of

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

Football career

Born in

Abbeville Abbeville (, vls, Abbekerke, pcd, Advile) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the chef-lieu of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of ...

, Debève began his career at Toulouse FC; after a slow start - only four first-team appearances in three seasons, he became a main squad member. His first match in the top level came on 5 June 1987, in a 1–0 home win against

RC Lens Racing Club de Lens (, commonly referred to as RC Lens or simply Lens) is a French professional football club based in the northern city of Lens in the Pas-de-Calais department. Its nickname, ''les sang et or'' (''the blood and gold''), co ...

. The most important part of Debève's career was spent at Lens, who he helped win the

national league The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, adding the

league cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

the following year. In the 1998–99 UEFA Champions League, he scored the game's only goal at

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

, against English champions Arsenal, making Lens the first club from France to win at that ground. After totalling more than 400 official matches in his country, Debève moved to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

with

Middlesbrough FC Middlesbrough Football Club ( ) is a professional football club in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Aroun ...

in February 2002, arriving for free and rejoining former Lens mate Franck Queudrue. He made his debut as a substitute in the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

6th round victory over Everton. He was then thrust into the starting line up for the semi-final against Arsenal due to various injuries, making only his second Boro appearance against the team he had knocked out of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

four years earlier. However, he could not prevent Boro losing 1–0. He left in the summer, and closed out his career in France's second level, with SC Amiens.

Managerial career

Immediately after retiring, Debève became a manager, starting as

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

with hometown side SC Abbevillois Football. Debève was named manager of Toulouse, the club where he started his playing career, on 23 January 2018, replacing

Pascal Dupraz Pascal Fernand Dupraz (born 19 September 1962) is a French professional football manager and former player who played as a striker. He was most recently the manager of Ligue 1 club Saint-Étienne. Early life Dupraz was born in Annemasse, Haute- ...

. Upon his appointment, Toulouse was 19th in Ligue 1 on 20 points from 22 matches (5 wins, 5 draws, 12 losses), and facing relegation. In his first match in charge of Toulouse, they lost 2–0 away to

Bourg-en-Bresse Bourg-en-Bresse (; frp, Bôrg) is the prefecture of the Ain department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Located northeast of Lyon, it is the capital of the ancient province of Bresse ( frp, Brêsse, links=no). In 2018, ...

in the 2017-18 Coupe de France Round of 32.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Debeve, Mickael 1970 births Living people Sportspeople from Abbeville Footballers from Somme (department) French men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Toulouse FC players RC Lens players Le Havre AC players Amiens SC players SC Abbeville players Middlesbrough F.C. players Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Premier League players French expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in England French football managers Toulouse FC managers Ligue 1 managers France men's youth international footballers French expatriate sportspeople in England Association football coaches