Marc Robert Wilmots (born 22 February 1969) is a Belgian professional football

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

and former player who recently managed the Iran national team and is now active at Raja CA. During his club career as

attacking 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 won trophies with KV Mechelen, Standard Liège and Schalke 04. He also represented the Belgium national team. Wilmots has also been a politician, having sat in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the e ...

for four years for the

Mouvement Réformateur The Reformist Movement (french: Mouvement Réformateur, MR) is a liberalism in Belgium, liberal French Community of Belgium, French-speaking Political parties in Belgium, political party in Belgium. MR is traditionally a Conservative liberalism, c ...

party.

Club career

In his club career, which started in 1987, Wilmots played for Sint-Truiden,

Mechelen Mechelen (; french: Malines ; traditional English name: MechlinMechelen has been known in English as ''Mechlin'', from where the adjective ''Mechlinian'' is derived. This name may still be used, especially in a traditional or historical contex ...

, Standard Liège, Schalke 04, and

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 ...

. At Schalke, he helped them to the 1997 UEFA Cup Final. His goal in the first leg was cancelled out by Internazionale in the second leg, but Schalke went on to win the game on penalties, with Wilmots scoring the decisive goal. He retired in 2003, after his second stint with Schalke. During his time with Schalke, the fans there gave him the affectionate nickname ''"Das Kampfschwein"'' (The War Pig), which has been picked up by some English language journalists. In Belgium he is known under the nickname the ''Bull of Dongelberg'', an allusion to his birthplace.

International career

For

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

, Wilmots scored 28 goals in 70 caps, his first coming in May 1990. He went to four World Cups, playing in three. After being an unused substitute in 1990, he played 54 minutes in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

without scoring, but scored two goals in

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 ...

and three in 2002, making him Belgium's leading goal scorer in World Cup history. He also scored a goal against Brazil in the last 16 match of the 2002 World Cup which was disallowed because of a "phantom foul" on Roque Júnior. According to Wilmots, the referee Peter Prendergast apologized for the error to him at half time. Wilmots was named as one of the seven reserves in the 2002 World Cup All-Star Team. Wilmots also played in Euro 2000, when Belgium co-hosted the tournament.

Managerial career

Wilmots became a football manager in summer 2004 for Sint-Truiden, but was sacked in February 2005. Between 2009 and 2012, he served as assistant manager of the Belgium national team under Dick Advocaat and later Georges Leekens. On 15 May 2012, following the exit of Leekens, Wilmots assumed the Belgium reins on an interim basis before going onto become permanent coach, signing a contract until June 2014. On 11 October 2013, Belgium qualified for the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting rig ...

. Wilmots is credited with "not only giving the young group confidence in themselves as well as enjoying a close relationship with his players but also at the same time being capable of instilling discipline to the squad." During the group stage, Belgium topped the group with all three wins, before exiting the tournament at the quarter-final stage. On 13 October 2015, Belgium won the group to qualify for the

UEFA Euro 2016 The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

in the last game of the stage against Israel. After a disappointing European Championship, Wilmots was fired by the

Royal Belgian Football Association The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA; ; ; ) is the governing body of football in Belgium. It was a founding member of FIFA in 1904 and UEFA in 1954 and was based in Brussels, not far from the King Baudouin Stadium. Since October 2021, ...

on 15 July 2016. In March 2017 Wilmots was appointed as the manager of Ivory Coast national team. However he was sacked from his position six months later after failing to qualify for the World Cup. On 15 May 2019, Wilmots agreed a three years contract to become the manager of the

Iranian national team ) ''(the national team)' other nicknames'' , Badge = Flag_of_Iran.svg , Badge_size = 190px , Association = Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran , FIFA Trigramme = IRN , FIFA Rank ...

, after Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz left the team after eight years in charge following Iran's semifinal exit in the Asian Cup. He officially signed his contract on 29 May, effective from 1 June 2019. On 4 December 2019, following shock defeats to both Iraq and Bahrain he left his role as Iran coach after six games in charge. On 11 November 2021, Moroccan team Raja CA announced that Wilmots would be their new head coach until 2024, succeeding Lassaad Chabbi. Wilmonts was sacked three months later by Raja on 21 February 2022.

Political career

After retiring as a footballer, Wilmots went into politics. He was elected to the

for the French-speaking conservative party, the Reformist Movement (''Mouvement Réformateur'' or MR) in the 2003 federal election. He received 79,437 votes, a number surpassed only by 17 other candidates in the whole country during the elections. In 2005, he announced that he wanted to resign as a senator, a rather unconventional and criticized constitutional move.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Belgium's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Wilmots goal.''

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

KV Mechelen * Belgian First Division: 1988–89 * European Super Cup: 1988 * Amsterdam Tournament: 1989 * Jules Pappaert Cup: 1990 Standard Liège * Belgian Cup:

1992–93 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 ''Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since th ...

* Intertoto Cup: runner-up 1996 Schalke 04 *

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 ...

: 1996–97 *

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

: 2001–02 Belgium * FIFA Fair Play Trophy: 2002 World Cup

Individual

* Young Professional Footballer of the Year: 1989–90 * Kicker German Football Rankings - International Class Player'':'' 1997-98, 2001-02 * Best Belgian Footballer Abroad: 2001, 2002 * Belgian Sports Merit Award: 2002 *Golden Shoe Lifetime Achievement Award: 2002 *4 FIFA World Cup participations: 1990,

, 2002 * Belgian Sports Coach of the Year: 2013, 2014 * Raymond Goethals Award: 2015 * Globe Soccer Awards Best Coach of the Year: 2015

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilmots, Marc 1969 births Living people People from Jodoigne Belgian footballers Belgian people of German descent Sint-Truidense V.V. players K.V. Mechelen players Standard Liège players FC Schalke 04 players FC Girondins de Bordeaux players Expatriate footballers in France Belgian football managers FC Schalke 04 managers Expatriate football managers in Germany Bundesliga managers Sint-Truidense V.V. managers Belgium international footballers 1990 FIFA World Cup players 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players 2002 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 2000 players Belgian First Division A players Bundesliga players Expatriate footballers in Germany Ligue 1 players Belgian expatriate footballers Members of the Senate (Belgium) Mouvement Réformateur politicians 21st-century Belgian politicians Belgium national football team managers 2014 FIFA World Cup managers Footballers from Walloon Brabant UEFA Euro 2016 managers Association football midfielders Ivory Coast national football team managers Iran national football team managers UEFA Cup winning players Belgian sportsperson-politicians Raja CA managers Botola managers