Archive for the ‘Ligue 1’ Category

Two years ago, Auxerre were in the Champions League. Today, they’re in Ligue 1’s relegation zone, their fans are protesting against new president Gerard Bourgoin, and coach Laurent Fournier is under pressure. If that wasn’t bad enough, their first January signing was Olivier Kapo, a hero of the successful early-2000s team, who has played for eight clubs in the eight years since leaving Auxerre. Oh, and among the list of candidates linked to replacing Fournier is Raymond Domenech. How did Auxerre get to this point?

If you listen to their former president, Alain Dujon, it’s all down to one man, the man who took them from the fourth division to the European Cup, who discovered talents like Eric Cantona, Philippe Mexes and Basile Boli, who spent 46 years at the club (44 as coach) and whose shadow still hangs over it.
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This has been the month for comebacks. Arsenal signed Thierry Henry, who took ten minutes to score an emotional winning goal on his return to the club; Manchester United took on Paul Scholes, who in 32 minutes of his team’s 3-2 FA Cup win over Manchester City last weekend, racked up a 97 per cent pass completion rate, better than any of his opponents (his only failed pass led to a City goal). And now in France, Marseille has got in on the act and re-signed Brandão.

Okay, so it’s not quite the same. The Brazilian striker left Marseille last March under a cloud: accused of sexual assault, an allegation he denies, and released from custody pending further investigation. “Until the investigation is complete, we are all agreed that Brandão should no longer wear the Marseille shirt,” said president Jean-Claude Dassier, insisting that coach Didier Deschamps and sporting director Jose Anigo were part of that decision.

Dassier’s response, ignoring the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, was a hard one and his stance would not have happened in England, where Premier League clubs—much more often than they would like,—support their players in the run-up to legal cases against them. Club owner Margarita Louis-Dreyfus was furious with Brandão after the allegation while new president Vincent Labrune made a point of reminding the players of their moral obligations as high-profile players.
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If anyone should know about the perils of playing for a club with a trigger-happy president or a capricious and interfering owner, it’s Claude Makelele. The former France midfielder spent three years at Real Madrid
(2000-03) and five years at Chelsea (2003-08): he saw Vicente del Bosque fired as coach after winning La Liga in 2003, and Jose Mourinho struggle with the ‘gift’ of integrating Andriy Shevchenko into his Chelsea side.

For the last three seasons, Makelele was the midfield leader at PSG. In the summer, he quit playing and stayed on as a ‘sports advisor’ (as per his contract, which guaranteed him a two-year post-playing deal on the same, €95,000-per-month deal). This week, any ambiguity about his role ended: Makelele was named assistant coach to new PSG boss Carlo Ancelotti, who spoke of the Frenchman’s “experience, charisma, personality, knowledge and communication skills” at his opening press conference.

‘Makelele: The ideal assistant’ ran L’Equipe’s front-page story. He is so respected in the dressing-room that PSG’s owners QSI even considered appointing Makelele as temporary coach, though he has not yet completed his qualification badges, to replace Antoine Kombouare, harshly sacked with the team top of the table going into the winter break.
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There’s a decent viral clip that’s been doing the rounds this week, featuring Wayne Rooney playing charades as part of the Manchester United Christmas Quiz. Rooney is trying to describe the film Bend it Like Beckham to Ryan Giggs and Jonny Evans. As the duo struggle to decipher Rooney’s finger-waving depiction of the number seven, Rooney points at coach Sir Alex Ferguson, who is watching on, kicks the air and points to his temple. The reference is clear: Fergie once kicked a boot that struck Beckham just by his eye, and Giggs immediately gets the film’s name. (That was just after a stunned-looking Ferguson had said, “That’s going to cost you.”)

After four years at LA Galaxy, where he played under Frank Yallop, Ruud Gullit and Bruce Arena, Beckham is set to play under a new boss at Paris Saint-Germain, where next week he could be unveiled, according to L’Equipe, at the Mayor’s Hotel de Ville residence, before a parade down the Champs-Elysees.

But Beckham’s coach won’t be Antoine Kombouare, the no-nonsense former PSG playing hero who has guided the club to top spot in Ligue 1 at the halfway stage of the season. “It has been difficult, and talking about my future every day has not been easy, but the players have ignored it all and achieved some outstanding results,” Kombouare said after last night’s 1-0 win at in-form Saint-Etienne.
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For sale: one French international striker, comes complete with an injury, excess weight, a problem with authority, an annual salary of over €3m and a distinct lack of goals.

Starting price: €10m.

Interested clubs so far: Wolfsburg, Fulham, Cologne, Fenerbahce and Trabzonspor.

His name: Andre-Pierre Gignac.

Yes, this is the same Gignac who finished as Ligue 1’s top scorer back in 2008-09 with 24 goals for Toulouse; the one who went to the 2010 World Cup and played in every game for France and after the tournament, and joined then-champions Marseille for €16m.

‘Two seasons at rock bottom,’ is how La Depeche describes his time at Marseille, but perhaps that comes as little surprise given the background to his move. In summer 2010, coach Didier Deschamps wanted to sign Luis Fabiano from Sevilla but Marseille could not agree a fee with the Spanish club: they wanted €10m, Marseille offered €8m. Deschamps also wanted Alberto Gilardino but that didn’t happen either. Gignac was the choice of sports director Jose Anigo, as was Loic Remy, who signed for €15m from Nice at the same time. The amounts now seem absurd, especially as the haggling with Sevilla was for so much less.
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When Joe Cole gave an interview to France Football magazine about a month after moving to Lille, he was quizzed on how much he knew about Ligue 1. He scored 6.5 out of 10, and one of the questions he faltered on was, “Who is Loulou Nicollin?” His answer: No idea. Correct answer: Montpellier president.

Given that Montpellier sit top of Ligue 1 after 15 games, are the only French team to have beaten Lille this season, and their 2.2 points-per-game average is better than Barcelona, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, maybe Cole knows the answer now.

Oh, and one more thing: Louis ‘Loulou’ Nicollin is also the most outspoken, outrageous and out-of-shape boss in the game. In charge of Montpellier since 1974, he combines his roguish lovability with a foul mouth and tendency to take things a little too far. On one hand, he’s a sports fanatic who made his money in refuse collection and still tells press conferences, “Well, I’m just a lowly bin-man…” On the other, he’s an overweight, out-of-touch homophobe with a habit of upsetting people.
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The most open secret in French football is out of the bag and, like all the best dramas, the news has provided fans with a hero and a villain. Paris Saint-Germain, league leaders despite a draw (1-1 with Bordeaux) and defeat (0-1 at home to relegation-threatened Nice), want to get rid of Antoine Kombouare as coach, and replace him with a marquee name.

Surprise, surprise.

Kombouare is playing the dignified victim in all this: after all, he has taken a squad that contained nine new players to top of the table, insisting that Champions League qualification (a top three place) remains his target for the season. That was the official line from owners QSI before the campaign began, but once PSG’s gulf in class became apparent, chairman Nasser al-Khelaifi shifted that to winning the title (he was reportedly upset by Kombouare’s down-playing of the situation).
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