Julien Sablé

French football manager (born 1980)

Julien Sablé (born 11 September 1980) is a French professional football manager. In his playing days as a midfielder, he represented France at youth international level.

Sablé began his career at Saint Étienne, where he made his first team debut in the 1997–98 season. He became an integral member of the club the following season, when they earned promotion to Ligue 1. Sablé later earned the captain's armband at Saint Étienne. In 2007, he signed a contract with Lens. In January 2009, he joined Nice, where he would eventually become club captain. He joined Bastia in October 2012, before retiring at the end of the following season, the same day as Mickaël Landreau.

In December 2017, Sablé, who had been working as Saint Étienne's under 19 coach, stepped in as the club's interim head coach following the departure of Óscar García. He managed six games, with a record of two draws and four losses, before being replaced by Jean Louis Gasset. Sablé took up the post of assistant manager at the club after Gasset's arrival, and remained as an assistant throughout the spells of Gasset, Ghislain Printant, and Claude Puel as manager. In December 2021, Sablé once again became Saint Étienne's interim manager, this time following the dismissal of Puel. After Pascal Dupraz was appointed, Sablé returned to his post of assistant. He left Saint Étienne at the end of the 2022–23 season, with the club suffering relegation to Ligue 2. On 12 December 2022, Sablé became the manager of Championnat National 3 side Nice B. After Lucien Favre was sacked, he was promoted to assistant manager for Nice's first team, under the direction of Didier Digard, formerly the assistant coach. Since Digard initially did not have his UEFA Pro License, UEFA rules prevented him from carrying out the usual pre match press conference duties held by the manager in UEFA competitions. Sablé, as assistant, completed the press conference instead of Digard ahead of a UEFA Europa Conference League match against Sheriff Tiraspol, and was listed as the manager on the match sheet to oblige by the rules.