Faouzi Benzarti

Faouzi Benzarti (فوزي البنزرتي; born 3 January 1950) is a Tunisian professional football manager and former player and the current head coach of Wydad AC.

He spent his entire career as a player at his home club US Monastir without any achievements.

His coaching career began and was only 29 years old, making it the youngest Tunisian coach at the time.

He is considered one of the most successful coaches in Tunisia.

He usually uses offensive play and a high-pressure plan as he is known for his toughness in training and his excessive anger towards his players and referees.

Faouzi Benzarti was born on 3 January 1950 in the city of Monastir, central coast of Tunisia, into a sports family.

Prior to his coaching career, Benzerti developed his career as an attacking midfielder and spent his entire 10-year career in his home team US Monastir since he was 18 years old in 1968 to 1978.

He did not play for the Tunisian team.

He attended primary and secondary education in Monastir, then joined the Higher Institute of Sports of Tunis and graduated from it in 1975.

He worked as a physical education teacher at many Tunisian institutes from 1975 to 1977, and after obtaining a football coach certificate he decided to devote himself entirely to training.

He began his career at EO Sidi Bouzid before returning to US Monastir, which he coached in 1979-1980, enabling him to return to Ligue I. In his first experience with Étoile du Sahel in the 1986-1987 season, he won the Tunisian league title and then the 1987 Tunisian Super Cup.

In 1990 he coached and led the Club Africain in the same year to win the league title and reach the final of the 1990 African Cup Winners' Cup.

Benzarti coached Espérance de Tunis in 1993 and crowned him with the Tunisian League, 1994 African Cup of Champions Clubs and the CAF Super Cup.

In March 1994, he was appointed as Tunisia national football team coach in the second match of 1994 African Cup of Nations hosted by Tunisia after the dismissal of Youssef Zouaoui who failed in the opening match against Mali.

He also signed with CS Sfaxien in June 1996 but soon left before the season to play his first overseas experience at the head of the Emirati Club Al-Shaab CSC.

It was not a successful experience as the team finished in seventh place in 1998–99 UAE Football League.

Faouzi Benzarti returned to the Club Africain in 1999 and reached the final of the 1999 African Cup Winners' Cup.

He made a brief pass as coach of Stade Tunisien in 2001 with unconvincing results.

He was appointed as coach of Espérance de Tunis in 2003 and won the 2002–03 Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1.

He signed with Étoile du Sahel in April 2006 and achieved impressive results in winning the 2006–07 Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1, 2006 CAF Confederation Cup and obtaining the silver medal in the 2006 CAF Super Cup.

After his involvement with Étoile du Sahel in 2006, Benzarti transferred to Espérance de Tunis in June 2007, but left soon after to manage the national team of Libya.

On 11 July 2007, he became the new head coach of the Libyan team.

He led the team in their last match of 2008 African Cup of Nations qualification and drew with DR Congo (1–1) in Kinshasa.

Benzarti remained in charge of the Libyan side after a good performance in World Cup qualifiers but returned to Tunisia in March 2009 to coach Espérance.

After returning to Esperance he won the Tunisian League twice in 2009 and 2010 becoming the most winning coach of Tunisian Leagues, he won also the Arab Champions League for the same year and reached the final of the 2010 CAF Champions League but was defeated by TP Mazembe.

Following the failure of the national team, under the leadership of Humberto Coelho, to qualify for the finals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he was removed from office on 18 November 2009 and replaced by Benzarti, who kept his duties at Espérance until November 2010, when his assistant Maher Kanzari replaced him.

After a series of friendly matches against Egypt, Zambia and Saudi Arabia, he began the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification with a 0–3 defeat by Ghana.

But then he made a positive streak and was close to qualifying for the third round of qualification before being defeated against Gabon in the last game.

He coached the Tunisian team in the 2010 African Cup of Nations in Angola.

On 17 May 2011, Benzarti signed a two-year contract with Club Africain after one week the club sacked former coach Kais Yâakoubi.

Accepting of the contract offered, he became a manager of the Club Africain for three times in his career.

and reached the final of 2011 CAF Confederation Cup.

On 26 March 2012, Faouzi Benzarti replaced Bernd Krauss as Étoile coach, The Tunisian journeyman coach went back to Sousse for a fourth time in his trophy filled career as German Bernd Krauss returned to his post of youth technical director.

His most important achievement was reaching the final of the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup with Raja CA.

During his managerial career, he was in charge of two national teams: the Tunisian and Libyan national football teams, he was also close to signing with the Moroccan team in 2016 before appointing Hervé Renard.

Benzarti managed clubs in Tunisia, Morocco, Oman and United Arab Emirates.

The most Tunisian clubs have won titles with him are Étoile du Sahel and Espérance de Tunis.

Otherwise, His experiences in the Persian Gulf region were not successful.

He achieved good results in Morocco, whether with Raja CA and Wydad Casablanca.

Benzarti was chosen as the ninth best African coach of all time.