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 Raja Club Athletic ( ar, نادي الرجاء الرياضي, Nādī ar-Rajāʾ ar-Riyāḍī, zgh, ⴰⵙⵔⵉⵔ ⵏ ⵕⴰⵊⴰ ⴰⵎⴰⵏⵓⵏ), commonly referred to as Raja CA, Raja Casablanca or simply RCA is a professional footb ...

. 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 Royal Standard de Liège, commonly referred to as Standard Liège (; nl, Standard Luik ; german: Standard Lüttich ) or simply Standard in Belgium, is a Belgian professional football club based in the city of Liège. They are one of the most ...

and

Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine ...

. He also represented the Belgium national team. Wilmots has also been a politician, having sat in the Senate for four years for the

Mouvement Réformateur The Reformist Movement (french: Mouvement Réformateur, MR) is a liberal French-speaking political party in Belgium. MR is traditionally a conservative-liberal party, but it also contains social-liberal factions. The party is in coalition as ...

party.

Club career

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

Sint-Truiden Sint-Truiden (; french: link=no, Saint-Trond ; li, Sintruin ) is a city and municipality located in the province of Limburg, Flemish Region, Belgium, and has over 41,500 inhabitants, which makes it one of the largest cities in Limburg. The mun ...

, Mechelen,

, 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 prefect ...

. At Schalke, he helped them to the

1997 UEFA Cup Final The 1997 UEFA Cup Final was a two-legged football match contested between Schalke 04 of Germany and Inter Milan of Italy. The tie was a tight affair, with each leg being won 1–0 by the home-team. After 210 minutes of football, the tie was eventua ...

. His goal in the first leg was cancelled out by

Internazionale Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is t ...

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 th ...

, Wilmots scored 28 goals in 70

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Ja ...

, his first coming in May 1990. He went to four

World Cups A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

, playing in three. After being an unused substitute in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

, 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 ...

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 The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe. The finals tournament was ...

, when Belgium co-hosted the tournament.

Managerial career

Wilmots became a football manager in summer 2004 for

, but was sacked in February 2005. Between 2009 and 2012, he served as

assistant 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 ...

of the Belgium national team under

Dick Advocaat Dirk Nicolaas Advocaat (; born 27 September 1947) is a Dutch former football player and coach who is currently the head coach of Eerste Divisie side ADO Den Haag. Advocaat was successful as a football player and as a coach, including three stint ...

and later

Georges Leekens Georges Leekens (born 18 May 1949) is a Belgian football manager and former player. During his managerial career, he was in charge of four national teams: the Belgian, Tunisian, Algerian and Hungarian national football teams. He also managed ...

. 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. 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, the ...

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, after Portuguese coach

Carlos Queiroz Carlos Manuel Brito Leal de Queiroz (; born 1 March 1953) is a Portuguese football coach who currently is the head coach of the Iran national team. He has served as the manager of his native Portugal's national team, the United Arab Emirat ...

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

announced that Wilmots would be their new head coach until 2024, succeeding

Lassaad Chabbi Lassaad Jarda Chabbi (born 23 August 1961) is a Tunisian football manager. He formerly managed Raja CA till November 2021. In 2018 he had a passage at SV Ried. Personal Chabbi is the father of professional football players Seifedin Chabbi and N ...

. 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 Senate for the French-speaking conservative party, the

Reformist Movement The Reformist Movement (french: Mouvement Réformateur, MR) is a liberal French-speaking political party in Belgium. MR is traditionally a conservative-liberal party, but it also contains social-liberal factions. The party is in coalition as ...

(''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 The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 te ...

: 1988–89 * European Super Cup:

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

Amsterdam Tournament The Amsterdam Tournament ( nl, Amsterdam Toernooi) was a pre-season association football competition, held in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The competition was hosted by Eredivisie club Ajax at the Amsterdam Arena. It was inaugurated in 1975 as the A ...

: 1989 *

Jules Pappaert Cup Trophy Jules Pappaert or Pappaert cup is a Belgian football trophy since 1953 and is awarded annually to a club in the first, second or third division of the Belgian Pro League with the longest uninterrupted series of unbeaten games. The award is ...

: 1990 Standard Liège *

Belgian Cup The Belgian Cup (french: link=no, Coupe de Belgique; nl, Beker van België []; german: link=no, Belgischer Fußballpokal) is the main Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in Belgium, run by the Belgia ...

: 1992–93 Belgian Cup, 1992–93 * UEFA Intertoto Cup, 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, clay ...

: 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 considered ...

: 2001–02 Belgium * FIFA Fair Play Trophy:

2002 World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial football world championship for men's national teams organized by FIFA. It was held from 31 May to 30 June 2002 at sites in South Korea an ...

Individual

* Young Professional Footballer of the Year: 1989–90 *

Kicker Kicker or The Kicker may refer to: Sports * Placekicker, a position in American and Canadian football * ''Kicker'' (sports magazine), in Germany * Kicker, the German colloquial term for an association football player * Kicker, the word used i ...

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:

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

Globe Soccer Awards The Globe Soccer Awards aka Dubai d'Or are football awards organised by the European Club Association (ECA) in conjunction with the European Association of Player's Agents (EFAA) and delivered by the organisation Globe Soccer. The award ceremony ...

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