Eric Descombes

Eric Descombes (born 25 June 1971) is a football manager and former player. Born in Cameroon, he was naturalised by Mauritania, and participated to the World Cup qualifiers for Germany 2006, with that country. He spent his career between Europe and the USA with clubs such as Chico Rooks, Cascade Surge, Sacramento Scorpions, Southend United, New Orleans Storm, Cincinnati Riverhawks and Indiana Blast. He capped twice for the Mauritanian national team and played in over 169 games at the professional level, scoring 16 times.

Éric Descombes

Personal information
Date of birth	Yaoundé, Cameroon[1]
Place of birth	(1971-06-25) 25 June 1971
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Position(s)	Defender
Club information
Current team	FC Mulhouse (manager)
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1986–1987	Canon Yaoundé
1988	Diamant Yaoundé
1988–1989	Lyon B
1989–1994	Toulouse B
1995	Chico Rooks	26	(5)
1996	Cascade Surge	25	(3)
1997	Sacramento Scorpions	30	(7)
1997–1998	Southend United	0	(0)
1999	New Orleans Storm	27	(1)
2000–2001	Cincinnati Riverhawks	49	(0)
2002–2003	Indiana Blast	12	(0)
Total		169	(16)
National team
2003	Mauritania	2	(0)
Teams managed
2000–2001	Indiana Blast
2007	Indianapolis Braves
2013	Africa Sports d'Abidjan
2013	Central African Republic
2016–2017	Africa Sports
2017–2018	Mulhouse (technical director)
2018–	Mulhouse
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Descombes started his professional coaching career in the A-League with the Cincinnati Riverhawks as a player-assistant coach and with the Indiana Blast as a head coach. He was the head coach and GM with Africa Sports d'Abidjan in Ivory Coast (2012/2013 season). He was named as the new national team coach and technical director of the Central African Republic, shortly after. The team participated in the CEMAC Cup in December 2013, while the civil war just had started. He led the team to a final appearance, after defeating Chad (1–0), Congo (1-0) and Cameroon (1-0), but falling to host country Gabon (0–2) in the final.

In January 2017, Descombes was named as the Director of Football with FC Mulhouse in France, overseeing the club's entire sport side, from the youth academy to the first team. In July 2018 he was named as the club's new manager.[2]