Rennes head coach Bruno Genesio resigned due to poor results, former head coach Julien Stephan will return as replacement effective immediately..

Rennes announced on its official website on Sunday that the club's former head coach Bruno Genesio had resigned and former head coach Julien Stefan will return immediately as his replacement.

According to Rennes' official statement, Genesio made the decision to resign after consulting with the club management. Although Rennes said in an official statement that Genesio had to resign due to personal reasons, local French media outlets believed that the former Beijing Guoan head coach was more likely to have been forced to resign due to poor results.

Regarding Genesio's resignation and Stefan's return, Rennes will hold a press conference at 2 noon French local time on Monday (November 20) to explain in detail. The club will also hold a press conference to grandly inaugurate Stefan's return.

It is worth mentioning that this will also be the second time that the two swap positions to replace each other after 2 and a half years.

About Bruno Genesio

The 57-year-old Bruno Genesio was born in Lyon, France on September 1, 1966. He is 1.74 meters tall and played as a midfielder during his playing career. He was a club legend of Lyon from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.

After retiring in 1996, Genesio served as the head coach of two non-league clubs, Villefranche and Racing Besançon. In the summer of 2006, he returned to his former club Lyon as a scout.

On Christmas Eve 2015, Genesio was appointed as Lyon head coach. During which, he led the club to the Europa League semi-finals once.

In July 2019, after leaving Lyon, Genesio was appointed as the head coach of Beijing Guoan until he left the club in January 2021 when his contract had expired.

After leaving Beijing Guoan, Genesio was appointed as Rennes head coach in March of the same year.

During his two-and-a-half-year spell as Rennes head coach, Genesio led the club into 124 games and achieving 63 wins, 25 draws and 26 losses, with a winning percentage of 52%.

About Julien Stefan

The 43-year-old Julien Stefan was born in Rennes, France on September 18, 1980. He is 1.83 meters tall and played as a defensive midfielder as a player, where he had played for Paris Saint-Germain and Toulouse.

After retiring in 2008, Stefan joined his hometown club Rennes and served as coach of its youth academy, head coach of the U19s and the head coach of the B team.

In December 2018, Stefan was appointed as the interim head coach of Rennes.

After leading the club to the Europa League Round of 16s knockout stage, Stefan was promoted to the role of permanent head coach one week later.

During his two-and-a-half-year spell as head coach of Rennes, Stefan led the club to win the Coupe de France in April 2019, breaking their 48-year championship drought and becoming famous. However, in March 2021, he was forced to resign after the club went through 7 consecutive games without winning.

In July of the same year, Stefan was appointed as the head coach of Strasbourg. However, due to the club's deteriorating performance, Stefan was eventually sacked by the Ligue 1 club in January this year.