Former Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier dies aged 73

RIP

Gérard Houllier has died at the age of 73, French media outlet RMC Sport are reporting. The former Liverpool manager passed away during the night between Sunday 13th and Monday 14th December. Houllier boasted a broad and successful career in football management, leading Paris Saint-Germain to their first ever league title in 1986, before a League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup treble saw him written into Liverpool folklore in 2001, also earning him the European Coach of the Year award that year. After departing Anfield in 2004, when he was replaced by Rafael Benitez, he moved back to his native France where he would win back to back league titles with Olympique Lyonnais. Houllier's journey to the Liverpool dugout was unorthodox. Having enrolled at Lille university to study English, he chose to spend a year in the city of Liverpool working as an assistant at Alsop Comprehensive School. During that year, he attended his first Liverpool match, a 10-0 thrashing of Irish side Dundalk. In 1973 Houllier would swap teaching for football management, taking over at Le Touqet in northern France. 12 years later, he would manage Paris Saint-Germain, a club still in its relative infancy at the time. Houllier spent a large chunk of the 1990s working with the French national team set-up, coaching the senior team in 1992-93 before overseeing the development of some of the greatest players of the past 20 years in the France U18 and U20 squads between 1994-1997. Houllier was a true legend of the game. May he rest in peace.