Franco Foda (born 23 April 1966) is a German

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

coach and former player who was most recently the manager of Swiss club

FC Zürich Fussballclub Zürich, commonly abbreviated to FC Zürich or simply FCZ, is a Swiss football club based in Zürich. The club was founded in 1896 and has won the Swiss Super League 13 times and the Swiss Cup 10 times. The most recent titles a ...

Club career

Foda appeared in over 400 top-flight matches in (West) Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Foda joined

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, and ...

's first team during the winter break of their 1996–97 season under head coach

Karl Engel Karl (Rudolf) Engel (Birsfelden, 1 June 1923 - Clarens, Switzerland, Chernex, 2 September 2006) was a Switzerland, Swiss pianist. In 1952 Engel was awarded the second prize at the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, Queen Elisabeth competition. ...

. Foda played his domestic league debut for his new club in the home game in the

St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in view of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several important matches, inc ...

on 2 March 1997 as Basel won 1–0 against

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

. During his few months with the club, Foda played a total of 15 games for Basel, without scoring a goal. 13 of these games were in the Nationalliga A, one was in the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

and the other one was a friendly game.

International career

During his second spell with 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the 1980s he won two caps with the West Germany national team under coach

Franz Beckenbauer Franz Anton Beckenbauer (, ; born 11 September 1945) is a German former professional footballer and manager. In his playing career he was nicknamed ''Der Kaiser'' ("The Emperor") because of his elegant style, dominance and leadership on the fi ...

; Foda played against

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

in late 1987. During his first ever international appearance, on 12 December 1987 in Brasilia against Brazil, Foda was at the centre of controversy. Both at the reading of the team names and later when he was substituted in, he was met with great applause by the Brazilian fans. Foda only found out the next day that this was due to his name translating to "free intercourse" in Portuguese.

Coaching career

Early career

Foda moved into coaching with Sturm Graz as an assistant coach. He had been interim head coach between 20 September 2002 until November 2002. At this point, Foda became the permanent head coach until they hired

Gilbert Gress Gilbert Gress (born 17 December 1941) is a French football coach and a former player. He was the mentor of Arsène Wenger. Club career Gress was born in Strasbourg. He began his professional football career in the city of his birth with RC St ...

to become the head coach on 4 June 2003. He then went on to coach the reserve team immediately after to when he was promoted to head coach of the first team on 1 June 2006. Sturm Graz won the

2010–11 Bundesliga The 2010–11 Bundesliga was the 48th season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier football league. It began on 20 August 2010 and concluded on 14 May 2011. The winter break was in effect between weekends around 18 December 2010 and 15 January 20 ...

and the

2009–10 Austrian Cup The 2009–10 Austrian Cup (german: ÖFB-Cup, also ''Stiegl-Cup'' for sponsoring purposes) was the 76th season of Austria's nationwide football cup competition. It commenced with the matches of the preliminary round in July 2009 and concluded with ...

under Foda. He was originally scheduled to leave after the 2011–12 season. However, he ended up being sacked on 12 April 2012 after the club was knocked–out of the

Austrian Cup The Austrian Cup (german: ÖFB-Cup), known as UNIQA ÖFB Cup for sponsorship purposes, is an annual football competition held by the Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB. During the 2008–09 season, Austria Wien won the tournament for 27th t ...

1. FC Kaiserslautern

On 22 May 2012, Foda was announced as new head coach of 1. FC Kaiserslautern, who had just been relegated to the second division after two seasons in the top flight. On 29 August 2013, he was sacked as head coach with immediate effect.

Return to Sturm Graz

Foda returned to Sturm Graz on 30 September 2014 and won his first match in–charge on 4 October 2014 against

Grödig Grödig is a market town of Salzburg-Umgebung District in the state of Salzburg in Austria. Geography Grödig is located south of the Salzburg city limits in the historic ''Flachgau'' region, near the border with Bavaria, Germany. The market tow ...

Austria national team

In October 2017 it was announced that Foda would become manager of the Austria national team, with effect from January 2018. Foda resigned from the position in March 2022, following their failure to qualify for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international association football, football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022 ...

after the defeat to Wales in Cardiff.

FC Zürich

On 8 June 2022, he was announced as the new head coach of Swiss champions

, replacing

André Breitenreiter André Breitenreiter (born 2 October 1973) is a German professional football coach and former player who is the manager of German Bundesliga club 1899 Hoffenheim. In 2022, he won the Swiss title with Zürich. Playing career upright=0.6, left, ...

. Foda was sacked by Zürich on 21 September.

Personal life

Foda is of Italian descent through his father. His son

Sandro Sandro is an Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swiss, Georgian and Croatian given name, often a diminutive of Alessandro (disambiguation), Alessandro or Alexander. It is also a surname. Sandro may refer to: Given name or nickname Sports *Sandro (f ...

(born 1989) first appeared professionally with Sturm Graz in 2007, when his father was head coach.

Coaching record

Honours

Player

1. FC Kaiserslautern * DFB-Pokal 1989–90 Bayer Leverkusen * DFB-Pokal: 1992–93 Sturm Graz *

Austrian Football Bundesliga The Austrian Football Bundesliga (german: Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, italic=no , "Austrian Football Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Austrian football league system. Th ...

: 1997–98, 1998–99 *

: 1998–99 *

Austrian Supercup The Austrian Supercup (German: ÖFB-Supercup) was a Association football, football competition held annually from 1986 until 2004 between the winners of the Austrian Football Bundesliga and the Austrian Cup. 19 editions were played during the sho ...

: 1999

Manager

Sturm Graz *

: 2009–10 *

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Foda, Franco 1966 births Living people German footballers German football managers Germany international footballers Germany under-21 international footballers German sportspeople of Italian descent Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players 1. FC Kaiserslautern II players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players Arminia Bielefeld players 1. FC Saarbrücken players Bayer 04 Leverkusen players VfB Stuttgart players FC Basel players Austrian Football Bundesliga players SK Sturm Graz players German expatriate footballers Expatriate football managers in Austria SK Sturm Graz managers Association football defenders 2. Bundesliga managers Austria national football team managers UEFA Euro 2020 managers German expatriate football managers German expatriate sportspeople in Austria Sportspeople from Mainz FC Zürich managers Swiss Super League managers Expatriate football managers in Switzerland German expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland West German footballers