Fabrice Vandeputte (born 22 September 1969) is a French professional football manager and former player. As a player, he was a midfielder.[2]
Club career
Vandeputte, who was a midfielder, started out his career at Standard FC de Montataire, joining Lille, where he would feature for the B team, later on. In 1989, he moved to Division 2Louhans-Cuiseaux. In four seasons at the club, he made a total of 109 league appearances, and scored 14 goals.[2] He would then sign for Beauvais, a club also in the Division 2; there, he made 23 appearances in one season under the coaching of Vahid Halilhodžić.[3]
After 1994, Vandeputte pursued his career in amateur divisions of French football. He went through Saint-Leu and Stade Montois before signing for Chantilly as player-manager in January 1998.[2]
International career
In the early parts of his career, Vandeputte was minimally selected with France youth teams.[3]
Managerial career
Vandeputte was first player-manager at Chantilly for three and a half seasons before becoming U19 coach at Louhans-Cuiseaux from 2003 to 2004.[3] He subsequently managed Dijon's B team, helping them win their group of the Championnat de France Amateur 2 in the 2004–05 [fr] season.[2] In 2008, he joined Sochaux's B team as a member of the staff. Four years later, in 2012, he was appointed manager of the team, a role he stayed at until 2015.[2]
In 2015, Vandeputte began to coach Lens's U19 team. In his first season in charge, he led them to the Coupe Gambardella Final, but they suffered a 3–0 loss against Monaco, finishing as runners-up. In 2017, he headed to Bourg-en-Bresse's B team, where he would stay at for one season, moving to coach Caen's B team in 2018.[2]
Caen
Vandeputte only stayed in the position of B team coach at Caen for four months, because in November 2018, he stepped up as assistant manager for the first team after being promoted by Fabien Mercadal.[3] However, he eventually went back to his role of B team coach in July 2019. In November 2020, Vandeputte was appointed as head of youth development at the club.[2]
On 23 March 2021, Vandeputte was appointed as head coach of Caen following the sacking of Pascal Dupraz.[4]Cédric Hengbart, Vandeputte's assistant in the reserve side, joined him as assistant manager of the senior side.[5] At the end of the season, Caen managed to stay in Ligue 2, finishing 17th.[6] Vandeputte would return to coach the reserve side,[7] and was succeeded by Stéphane Moulin.[8]