If the name Luis Campos rings a bell, it’s because he’s one of the more highly regarded directors of football around, having helped Monaco in their impressive rebuild after being a Real Madrid scout under José Mourinho.
Now at Lille, the former Beira-Mar manager is trying to salvage Marcelo Bielsa’s mess, a manager he didn’t even suggest to Gerard Lopez, the Ligue 1 side’s owner.
According to Le10 Sport, when looking at the project the Luxembourger businessman wanted to install in the north of France, Luis Campos put forward two names: Laurent Blanc and a certain Marco Silva.
While no date has been mentioned regarding when this happened, the timeline of events since suggests this was around the time the current Watford manager was on the verge of taking over at Hull City.
Unable to save the Tigers from relegation to the Championship, the Portuguese manager impressed nonetheless, earning himself a job at Vicarage Road, where he has continued over performing, despite a recent poor run of games.
With Gerard Lopez ignoring his advisor’s suggestions and plumping on the hype surrounding Marcelo Bielsa instead, the Lille owner appears to have missed out on a great manager, one he probably could have convinced to join with what was an interesting project at the time.
Following this summer’s transfer window, however, the great Ligue 1 club revamp has become a bit of a train wreck, with Lille sitting 19th in the table after 11 games.
And had Marco Silva taken that job instead, he probably wouldn’t have ended up at Watford.
