Laurent Batlles (born 23 September 1975) is a French former professional

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 ...

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 ...

, currently

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other Coach (sport), coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manage ...

of club

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the ...

Playing career

Batlles was born in

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabit ...

. In 1993, he emerged from the

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. The city is on t ...

academy into the senior squad, playing his first game in

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. ...

on 2 April 1994 in a 1–0 away loss against

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

. In 1999, after scoring ten league goals in six seasons, two spent in

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsorship by Balkrishna Industries, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions making up the Ligu ...

, Batlles signed with

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture ...

, where he took part in exactly half of 1999–2000's league fixtures, adding eight appearances in the side's

run Run(s) or RUN may refer to: Places * Run (island), one of the Banda Islands in Indonesia * Run (stream), a stream in the Dutch province of North Brabant People * Run (rapper), Joseph Simmons, now known as "Reverend Run", from the hip-hop grou ...

in 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 ...

, netting once. The following campaign he scored three in 32 matches, featuring in 19 league games in 2001–02 – six in the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, cla ...

– before completing the latter season at

Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine departm ...

. In January 2003, Batlles moved to Corsica and

Bastia Bastia (, , , ; co, Bastìa ) is a communes of France, commune in the Departments of France, department of Haute-Corse, Corsica, France. It is located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It also has the second-hi ...

. He played the remaining 19 fixtures for his new team, a figure he repeated in the first half of 2003–04 (without scoring) before joining

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fran ...

, in another January

transfer window A transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club can transfer players from other playing staff into their playing staff. Such a transfer is completed by registering the player into the new club through FIFA. "Transfer ...

move. Batlles contributed eight matches in ''l'OMs runner-up run in the

including

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

, lost 2–0 to

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

. The following season he scored eight goals in 30 games and, after starting 2005–06 at the

Stade Vélodrome The Stade Vélodrome (; oc, Estadi Velodròm, ), known as the Orange Vélodrome for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium in Marseille, France. It is home to the Olympique de Marseille football club of Ligue 1 since it opened in 1937, ...

, rejoined Toulouse following problems with manager

Jean Fernandez Jean Fernandez (born 8 October 1954) is a French professional football manager and former player. He has previously managed Metz and Marseille, where France national team star Franck Ribéry saw him as a mentor. He managed Auxerre for five year ...

. Batlles joined permanently in the 2006–07 campaign after a successful loan spell, although he had a contract with Marseille until June 2008. Again, he was an undisputed starter, as Toulouse finished third in the league and reached the third qualifying round of the Champions League, eventually bowing out to

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

. In 2008–09, the 33-year-old Batlles joined newly promoted club

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

on a two-year deal, being first choice as it eventually retained its top-flight status. In June 2010, after being relegated, he was released, quickly signing for

– the first team placed above the relegation zone – at nearly 35 years of age.

Coaching career

Batlles retired from football in May 2012, with a total of 473 French top-tier games and 41 goals. He continued working with his last club, as a technical supervisor. In June 2019, Batlles was announced as the new coach of

Troyes Troyes () is a commune and the capital of the department of Aube in the Grand Est region of north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about south-east of Paris. Troyes is situated within the Champagne wine region and is near ...

, joining on a two-year contract. He led them back to the top flight in

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after a three-year absence, as champions. Batlles left on 30 December 2021, after falling out with owners

City Football Group City Football Group Limited (CFG) is a holding company that administers association football clubs. The group is owned by three organisations; of which 81% is majority owned by Newton Investment and Development LLC, 18% by the American firm Sil ...

. He agreed to a two-year deal at recently-relegated Saint-Étienne on 3 June 2022.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

Marseille *

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, ' betting pool'),Most precisely, from ( football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International F ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris (dwarf planet), Er ...

Manager

Troyes *

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Battles, Laurent 1975 births Living people French footballers Footballers from Nantes Association football midfielders Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Toulouse FC players FC Girondins de Bordeaux players Stade Rennais F.C. players SC Bastia players Olympique de Marseille players Grenoble Foot 38 players AS Saint-Étienne players France youth international footballers France under-21 international footballers French football managers Ligue 1 managers Ligue 2 managers ES Troyes AC managers AS Saint-Étienne managers