Once branded "one of the world's most incompetent coaches" by Eric Cantona, Ivory Coast boss Henri Michel's impressive World Cup record would tend to contradict the view of the Manchester United legend.

Frenchman Michel will lead a country into a World Cup tournament for the fourth time this summer - and every time it has been a different assignment for a man who has worked in nine different countries.

Only Bora Milutinovic, who led five countries to different World Cup tournaments - Mexico (1986), Costa Rica (1990), United States (1994), Nigeria (1998) and China (2002) - has a better record.

Michel's first crack at football's ultimate prize came in 1986 when he led France to the semi-finals of the World Cup in Mexico in what was the last major tournament for Michel Platini.

In 1994 he was back with Cameroon and in 1998 returned to French soil, but only with Morocco rather than the eventually victorious host nation.

Michel leads the Ivory Coast into their first ever World Cup.

He has lived 'out of a suitcase' as coach but the same could not be said of his playing career where, after two years as a midfielder with Aix, he spent 16 seasons with Nantes.

He won three French titles and a French Cup with 'Les Canaris', earning 58 caps and scoring four goals for 'Les Bleus'.

When he quit playing in 1982 he was quickly appointed coach of the French Under-21 side and upgraded two years later to boss of the senior side.

He took the post with France in the wake of their Euro 84 win - their first major trophy. Boss Michel Hidalgo had resigned after that landmark achievement.

Michel also has fond winning memories of 1984 as it was the year he led France's footballers to an Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles.

The defending European champions were touted by many as likely winners of the 1986 World Cup but their quest ended at the hands of West Germany in the semi-finals.

Michel was removed from his post in 1988 and replaced by Platini, with Cantona's remarks indicating he had lost the dressing room.

In fairness to Michel, perhaps only Guy Roux, the man who discovered 'King Eric', and Sir Alex Ferguson ever knew how to handle Cantona.

Furthermore, many credit Aime Jacquet's decision in 1995 to cast out the striker in the wake of his assault of a Crystal Palace fan as the moment French football started its period of transition from constant under-achievement to the Zinedine Zidane-inspired golden age of 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 successes.

Michel remained as technical director of the French Football Federation until 1990 and then had a brief stint with Paris St Germain.

With Cameroon, he failed to progress beyond the group stages in the 1994 World Cup before moving to the Arabian peninsular to coach Al Nasr.

In 1995 he was appointed boss of Morocco and was cruelly denied a place in the second phase of the 1998 World Cup.

Morocco comprehensively beat Scotland 3-0 in their final group match in France but as the Moroccan players started to celebrate qualification the news came through that - against all expectations - Norway had scored a late winner against defending champions Brazil.

That meant the Scandinavians and not the Atlas Lions joined Brazil in the next phase.

Spells with the United Arab Emirates and Tunisian national sides and a period in Greece with Aris Salonika followed before a return to Morocco as boss of Raja Casablanca.

However, in 2004 he was appointed as Ivory Coast boss, charged with leading the Elephants to their first ever World Cup.

Michel admitted that the challenge was a tempting one as he accepted the post, telling L'Equipe: "It's terrific to take charge of a team of this calibre.

"They've never qualified for the World Cup and that's our aim."

The mission was duly accomplished, although had Pierre Wome converted a stoppage-time penalty to give Cameroon victory against Egypt then the Indomitable Lions would have qualified at the expense of the Elephants.

Since qualification, Michel has strengthened his backroom staff by appointing former Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Bastia and Egypt boss Gerard Gili as his assistant.

Working conditions have been far from easy - witness the treatment meted out by fans to players after the 3-2 home defeat at the hands of Cameroon which looked like the end of their World Cup hopes before Egypt did them an unexpected favour.

However, qualification means Didier Drogba and Bonaventure Kalou have backtracked on threats to quit and now Michel has a playing squad that many of his 31 fellow World Cup qualifiers will envy as he approaches his fourth tournament but the first ever for the west African state.