Contested on his recruitment, he led the Stallions to their maiden AFCON final in 2013.

Like the stone that the builder refused which ended up becoming the corner stone, Paul Put’s recruitment as coach of the Stallions was contested for his lack of African experience and past match fixing record but he ended up writing the most beautiful page of Burkina Faso football history. He led the Stallions to their maiden final of the Africa cup of Nations in 2013 and has again qualified them for the final round of the tournament to take place in Equatorial Guinea. Voted one of the best coaches in the Belgian league, Paul Put managed to instil confidence in the players and put in place a collective play style that propelled them to the lime light of the continent.

He calls himself, football’s Lance Armstrong in apparent allusion to the fact that he was able to rekindle his career in Africa after having been banned for three years by the Belgian league for match fixing. He had previously managed Belgian club sides Geel, Lokeren and Lierse, before being banned for three-years by the Royal Belgian Football Association for his alleged involvement in the Ye Zheyun match-fixing scandal. Put was manager of the Gambian national team between 2007 and 2011, before being appointed as manager of Burkina Faso in March 2012.