Money, Medicrocy, and PSG: Week 29 in Ligue 1

Rich Middle Eastern men buy a storied but underachieving European football club and pump money into the team in hopes of raising their profile and filling their trophy cabinet quickly. Coaches are hired and fired, big names are bought and benched, and progress doesn't come quite as easily as the new owners hoped.

A familiar story? Of course, Manchester City fits this profile. Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi came in, bought the team, injected a bunch of money, and now Manchester City is fitfully contending for a Premier League title, about to drop to 1 or 3 points off the race (Manchester United hosts Fulham tonight) but with a game at home against MU looming. Title contention comes in the 4th season of the Mansour regime.

The same story unfolds on a different trajectory in Paris. PSG, the capital club, received the new funding and ownership of Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani and the Qatar Sports Enterprise, and proceeded to follow the Manchester example. Man City bought Robinho to announce their intentions in 2008; PSG snagged Javier Pastore for 42M euros from Palermo. Man City hired Mark Hughes to manage the club for a year and a half before dumping him for Roberto Mancini; PSG let incumbent manager Antoine Kombouare hang around for another half a year before dumping him for Carlo Ancelotti. Man City struggled to finish in the mid table their first year; PSG struggled to tie for first place with 9 games to play...oh, wait, what?

The parallel clearly smashes when looking at the results. Manchester city dropped from 9th to 10th in their first year under new ownership. For all one might resent the nouveau riche air of the Blues, they did gradually build up from there over the past few years - from 10th to 5th and the Europa League to 3rd, the Champions League, and a cup title, and now to 2nd and a legitimate threat for #1 while virtually clinching the Champions League for 2012-13. Manchester City progressed rapidly, but in a linear, logical fashion.

Paris St.-Germain, meanwhile, has led much of the year, and sits in 2nd only on goal difference. What's the difference? More money? Qatari/French charm? Better perfume to attract player's wives?

No, mostly two circumstances that have little to do with ownership. PSG started off in better position, relative to their league: they reached a cup final last year and took 4th in the league, qualified for Europa League back to back seasons, and reached the round of 16 in the Europa League last year. They were hardly enjoying their glory days, but they were not in the dumps either.

The other major circumstance is that PSG plays in Ligue 1, which is universally considered the weakest of the top five European leagues. The Premier League is experiencing a downturn, and any of Italy, Spain, or Germany would have a fair argument for being the strongest championship going (I incline towards Spain and then Germany), but even so the only link between the two leagues in quality is that the Premier League is poised to buy up many of Ligue 1's best players this summer. France develops strong players, but doesn't usually keep them in the same register as the other leagues.

This year has been viewed as a down year for Ligue 1, and some have questioned whether Montpelier's upstart run is a bad sign, an omen of the relative slackness of the competitors. That slackness is disappearing a bit, as Lyon charges back up towards the Champions League, Lille remains close to their title-winning pace of a year ago, and only Marseille really lags among the historical titans. But in any case, the down cycles in Lyon and Marseille, among others, explain PSG's success this year as much as Montpelier's run, if not more so. The reason Paris St. Germain can get out ahead of Manchester City's pace is that they have both easier competition in the table and on a weekly basis, and because they were better off when the oil-money building process started.

Which doesn't mean PSG lacks virtues of their own this year, as last night's game with Bordeaux proved. The game was typical of PSG's recent form, which has seen them continue a 14-game unbeaten streak in Ligue 1 in increasingly uneven fashion. Since a comfortable 3-1 win at home against Evian TG, PSG has plodded (0-0 away to Nice), narrowly escaped (late draws against Montpelier, Lyon, and Caen and a late win against Dijon), won comfortably only once (4-1 against Ajaccio), and lost in the Coupe de France to Lyon 1-3 at home. PSG had followed Man City's example again in forming a solid defense from which the talented attackers could build off, and they had the best defense in the league for the first 23 weeks (only 19 goals conceded). Since then, they have had the worst defense in the league (but also the best offense, scoring 15 to 11 allowed).

So while they may not have lost in league play since November, PSG did find themselves in 2nd for the first time in three weeks when they kicked off at home against Girondins Bordeaux. A win would launch them back into first. But Bordeaux's 3-5-2/5-3-2 formation that allows for lots of wing play caused trouble for PSG, and the capital club looked the lesser of two dull sides in the first half. The team has been assailed for lacking team play and needing individual brilliance to get them out of jams. The first half lacked any sort of brilliance or team play, and it was hard to watch.

The second half continued in this vein, albeit with more PSG control, until the last 15 minutes. Bordeaux got out on a wacky counter - it started with a header from the goalie Cedric Carasso off of a tricky pass back - and Ludovic Obraniak played a through ball past a beaten offside trap that left two Bordeaux players against one PSG keeper, and led to a 0-1 Bordeaux lead. It was hardly unmerited considering the overall run of play.

Paris St. Germain's main virtue, though, has been their toughness. It could be because nobody has been able to stand up to them fully once ahead, but Paris has stolen five points in this bad stretch, and that counts for a lot. That and Javier Pastore's hideous haircut, which turned his boyish but handsome floppy do into a thick mohawk replete with lightning bolts shaved into the left side of his head, and PSG has something to work with.

So Bordeaux turtled up immediately after their goal, PSG poured on the pressure, Mathieu Bodmer played a great backheel, and Guillaume Hoarau similarly lurked just onsides, stepped into the box, and blasted a shot off Carasso and into the net to tie the match. Hoarau has scored all five of his goals in these past six tough fixtures, saving draws against Montpelier, Lyon, and now Bordeaux after not starting a league match since the season opener. His up and down season mirrors PSG's sometimes herky-jerky play, but the squad managed to hold onto this tie at least, bringing them back to level on points with Montpelier.

PSG does not seem fazed by the pressure of their favorite status, and whenever the matches get into a tricky spot, they right themselves. This is a sign of a champion, no matter how mediocre the competition or how much money the owners spend. Now, maybe part of the ease PSG plays with from behind comes from knowing that they're ahead of schedule, and that much more money is coming into the payroll this summer and in the years to come. In any case, the sense of inevitability or thankless expectation has not totally set in in Paris, which allows the club to figure out their identity. They might have to reforge their defense and their focus, though, if they want to stay ahead of the game and emerge as champs this year.

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Kick around the rest of the Ligue:

- Montpelier jumped to the top thanks to this goal:


Résumé MHSC 1-0 ASSE par mhscfoot
(skip to the 5:15 mark) 
 
Olivier Giroud, tops in Ligue 1 with 18 goals, scored against Germany in France's most recent friendly, and looks more and more like a key player in Les Bleus Euro2012 effort. He is likely gone from Montpelier this summer, possibly to Arsenal.

- Again, there are three great races to watch in Ligue1 over the last nine games. The title race between Montpelier and PSG could be a classic. PSG gets a chance to pass Montpelier, who will be idle because of Marseille's Champions League matchups, next weekend, before the two teams play Marseille back to back on April 8th and 11th. Then the relegation race is still a mess, with Nancy, Dijon, and Valenciennes all giving themselves a bit of breathing room, but nobody except Auxerre looking really doomed.

The race for 3rd/4th and the final European spots might be the most interesting, though. Lille has 3 points on Toulouse and 4 on Lyon and looks comfortable, but they host Toulouse this weekend (Toulouse is on a 5 wins and 1 draw in 6 matches streak) and also have matches home to PSG and away to Montpelier (Lille does lurk only 7 points behind the leaders, should they both falter a bit). Toulouse remains rock-solid on defense (another 1-0 win this week) and only has Lyon and Montpelier at home as notable matchups besides this week's showdown. Lyon, meanwhile, is resurgent and gets chances against Rennes and Toulouse as direct competitors but then nobody else tough. Lyon also faces at least two more cup matches and is a favorite to hoist at least one cup, which would have them into the Europa League as well. Rennes and Saint-Etienne are losing the plot, a little bit, but they're not totally out of the 4th place battle, at least. All in all, lots to play for.

- Big matches this week are Marseille hosting Bayern Wednesday, then Nancy-PSG (Nancy won away in November at Paris) Saturday night and the Rennes-Lyon and Lille-Toulouse April Fools' Day showdowns. Maybe it's a celebration of mediocrity here, but I'm enjoying it.

Ugly, Ugly, Ugly: Brest, Toulouse, and Ligue 1 Week 28

Brest is an ugly team. There are no two ways about this. Apparently, the team policy demands a quota of guys wear long hair in a pony tail when playing, always a bad look - see defender Paul Baysse, midfielder Jhon Jairo Culma, or midfielder Bruno Grougi. Further, scruffy or wispy facial hair infests many a Brestois mug, including Culma and Baysse and extending to captain Jonathan Zebina in defense. Then there are the awkward looking types, such as Mario Licka and his wavy but not quite modeled blonde hair. Their coach, Alex Dupont, looks like a cartoon version of an angry, doddering French man. Their jerseys are usually inoffensive Red and White affairs, but this past weekend they wore an ugly pale blue jersey, Man City like but without the quality or the style behind the jersey.

Ma zeh? What's with the haraah on the face?

They even have an Israeli on the team, Eden Ben Basat. Israeli men and women, I found from my experience there, are often very handsome, with the mix of various geographic origins, nice weather that encourages healthiness, tans, and surfing, and the unexplained tendency that leads to Israeli women having large breasts in testament to the country's status as the land of milk and honey all playing a role in the good looks. Eden Ben Basat, though, is ugly. The ne'er do well haircut that hangs over his forehead and the strands of dark hair on his face that look like something a cat hacked up do nothing to flatter the attacker.

Toulouse, for their part, is a rather handsome team. Sure, Etienne Capoue has a strange streak of white in his flattop hair, and Etienne Didot's look raises the question of whether his hairline is receding or his giant forehead is just growing and devouring space at an ever-increasing rate, but Toulouse is attractive. Daniel Congré, for example, demonstrates how to wear a pony-tailed dreadlocks look appropriately. All in all, we can't complain about Toulouse.

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What is the link between these two teams, if not their physical appearance? Why did we waste precious space on the Internet (oxymoron) detailing the looks of two Ligue 1 clubs? What the shit, in other words?

Well, while the two clubs' rosters don't look similar, Brest and Toulouse are known to share one major, relative trait: their style of play, which can be charitably described as boring, or more piercingly as ugly. Et, voila.

Toulouse and Brest entered Week 28 sharing the league lead for least goals allowed, at 24 apiece. That works out to 8/9 goals a game, or else .888 goals a game. This sturdy defense has buoyed both clubs' performance this year. Brest, who finished 13th and 16th the past two years and was on 12th, only 3 points clear of relegation but with a few teams below them and a solid goal differential of -2. That means, of course, that they had only scored a league-low 22 goals in the first 27 games, an average of .81 goals a game. Brest's games are the lowest-scoring in the five major leagues in Europe on average, and comfortably so. Toulouse, for their part, had scored 29 goals entering yesterday's contest, just better than a goal a game. Their added scoring punch had been enough to leave them on the fringe of Europe, 6th place in the table.

The nature of each side's defensive grip and means is a bit different. Brest is one of those clubs that has little choice but to play defensively. Their ideal game came against Marseille at home - they scored on a corner early on, then defended well for 75 minutes and absorbed the pressure successfully to win 1-0. Their emblematic bad game came against Montpelier away or Bordeaux at home last week; concede a goal in the first half (a lucky one against Montpelier, even), and then lack the offensive muster to come from behind or go ahead. They have only come back from a deficit to draw four times this year (compared to eight losses) and have not won once this year after falling behind. They are ranked as the league's worst in the second half of games per Ligue1.com's table.

Against Lorient in a Breton derby on Saturday, Brest had reason to open up and feel a little more confident. Their one 3-goal performance this season came against Lorient at home, and Lorient had a 12-match winless streak in Ligue 1 and a 9-match winless streak overall. They appeared to pose little threat to Brest, the travel was mild (90-minute drive, Google Maps says), and Brest needed a big game after the bad loss to Bordeaux.

In the first half, Brest got after it. The aforementioned Ben Basat scored a pretty goal with his back half-turned to net in the 11th minute, giving Brest the crucial lead they could clamp down on. Brest felt their oats and continued to press the flagging Lorient squad, creating several good chances and looking like a decent threat to add a second. When Lorient pushed forward, they found Brest defending with their usual panache, with the midfield line either five meters off the defenders line - giving no space to attackers against 8 players - or forming something of a diamond so that the holding midfielder and two wing midfielders interfered Lorient's plan ably enough. If you are a fan of defense, Brest's first half was something of a beautiful thing.

Whether overconfident or piercing too deep or not deep enough (failing to get that second goal), Brest's best-laid plans fell apart in the second half. There, Lorient, facing a "now or never" moment as attacker Jérémie Aliadière described it, regained initiative, punctured Brest's invulnerability with a goal off a corner, continued to press and possess, and gained a winner three minutes from time. Brest perhaps faced the problem of the donkey in a lion skin, opening their mouth to roar and finding two goals let in against them. Back down to 13th, though still 3 points away from relegation.

Toulouse has a bigger budget, more talent, and more hopes of developing into a bonafide two-way threat of a club. So argues, at least, Matthew Spiro. Toulouse could play more aggressively, he states, and with a direct showdown against Stade Rennes, one of the other European spot contenders, Toulouse had all the incentive yesterday to open up.

Again, in the first half Toulouse did the damn thang, playing aggressively, possessing the ball, and pressuring Rennes with their offense. On defense, Toulouse too defends with great numbers, their midfield line constantly retreating to a place just in front of their defenders, which makes it easy to start the counterattack if more challenging to follow through on it and score. Rennes struggled to break Toulouse down, while Toulouse struggled to take advantage of easy opportunities, such as defender Cheikh Mbengue mishandling a crucial touch in the box that could have led to a goal.

Football does not always obey logic, and often obeys logic in awkward forms. So it came right before the half for Toulouse, as they pressured Rennes into an own goal on an fluky clearance by defender Romain Danzé (video here). A 0-1 position against Toulouse is even worse than a 0-1 position against Brest, with Toulouse only conceding that lead four times this year (loss to PSG, draw against St. Etienne, 2-1 win against Evian, and...1-1 draw last week against Lorient). Toulouse made good on that promise, tightening the jaws and leaving Rennes with another big win, while the home team faced another frustrating result.

So what of ugliness? Brest went on the road and showed signs of moving past their ugliness, but ultimately could not hold to their defensive principles. In two games this year against Lorient, Brest has conceded 3 goals and scored 4. That marks 1/7 of goals scored in Brest games out of 1/14 of total games played to date. So maybe it's a derby fluke. Toulouse, meanwhile, took a longer trip to get to Bretagne, played aggressive enough to earn a goal, and then happily settled in to keep a clean sheet. It may have been ugly and dull, but Toulouse is now 4th in the league, which means Europa League. That is attractive, in any case.


Kick around the rest of the Ligue:

- Speaking of ugly: I'm re-learning to not jump to any hasty conclusions when writing about sports (or anything, but especially silly things like sports). That statement that Marseille would have a better chance than Lyon of righting the ship? Lyon has won two straight matches against direct competition, beating Lille at home and winning a derby away at St. Etienne on a late goal from struggling striker Bafetimbi Gomis (who is quite handsome, or so the lady of the house tells me) coming off the bench. Part of why I didn't like Lyon's chances, besides their uninspired play, was their schedule, with matches against those two clubs as well as PSG in the Coupe de France and Rennes away all coming in a four week span. They've taken those games as opportunities, and now sit just off Toulouse in 5th, a mere 4 points away from Lille and Champions League qualification, with games against Rennes and Toulouse still to come in the next few weeks (though both are away). I'm not going to get ahead of myself by predicting anything, but Lyon certainly is in the picture.

Marseille continues to nosedive in the Ligue, losing to Dijon (of last week's mustard squirt) at home. Again, things can change quickly, but Marseille might really be at the stage where they should focus on peaking in their cup matches (Coupe de la Ligue final against Lyon in April, Coupe de France quarterfinal Tuesday against an amateur Quevilly) and in the Champions League quarters against Bayern Munich, a tough but not impossible draw. With eight points and five teams separating them from earning a Europa League spot through Ligue play, but a comfortable twelve points between them and relegation, Marseille doesn't have that much to play for - apparently Ligue 1 doles out TV revenues in proportion to table finish, but even that might not be worth it as much as focusing on earning maybe one more round of Champions League this year against Real Madrid, and meanwhile putting their eggs in the cups.

- Only one team has defeated both Montpelier and Paris St. Germain, the runaway top duo of the table despite slip-ups this week. That team? TRtMTR favorite AS Nancy, which took advantage of a dubious penalty and two red cards against Montpelier to win 1-0, putting themselves three points clear of relegation and giving them seven points out of nine since fans broke into their dressing room and lit a firecracker a day after a loss. Montpelier's coach Rene Girard grumbled, justly perhaps, that it's hard to play "12 on 9". Fortunately, they only fell one point further behind PSG.

- Speaking of dressing rooms, Auxerre faced another tumultuous moment after losing 0-2 at home to Evian. Fans tried to storm the locker room immediately after the game. While no harm was done, Auxerre, which sunk to 20th in the table this weekend, fired their coach Laurent Fournier. Between the positive uptick Nancy's performance has undergone since their fan frenzy incident and Sochaux's two straight wins after firing their coach that put them just above Auxerre, it's clear that the team has examples to draw inspiration from. Of course, Auxerre fans also caused trouble a month and a half earlier when losing 1-3 at home to Nancy, so perhaps this spark won't light.

- Coupe de France matches this week, so there might be a write-up of that. Next week sees the title contenders face tough matches at home - PSG against Bordeaux, Montpelier hosting St. Etienne - but little else that stands out. Still, we'll be watching, in case another riot breaks out, or another exciting game, or else ugliness prevails some more. Until then.

The Glory of a Messy Ending - OM "beats" Inter 1-2

The San Siro last night was packed with people, hopes, and cliches. 62,632 fans watched in the famous Italian stadium, home to rivals AC Milan and Inter Milan. On the pitch, the middling, aging home team sought to mount a last charge two years after their last Champions League (and domestic) title, and in the midst of an uninspired season that sees them 6 points off the Europa League and 8 off the Champions League with 11 matches to play (and AC Milan leading the table). The middling, stuck-in-limbo visitors also pinned their hopes for seasonal salvation on last night's match, guarding a 1-0 lead from the home match that marked their only highlight of the calendar year, what with them as well crashing to 7 points off the Europa League spot and 8 off the Champions League (though they have cups that could qualify them for Europa League as well). As for the cliches? "The night of last chances," "the last-chance saloon", "two rats in a corner", all possible and/or used descriptions of the match. Sometimes football exists as an excuse to pun and coin pithy statements about life and drama and etc.

All these hopes and people and cliches filled and grew over 90+ tense minutes, before deflating on one seemingly inconsequential, desperate attempt. A mundane situation, a lucky bounce, and a strong finish, and it was all over. Football.

For those first 90 minutes, the game played out to a fairly predictable script. Inter played a little bit more aggressively and pressed the pace, being down a goal from the first leg of the cup tie. Marseille, an underdog anyway, managed to hold the ball for stretches and threatened occasionally; an OM goal would more or less clinch the match, as Inter would have to win 3-1 in that case. The first half was scoreless, and as the pressure and desperation built on the Inter side, they attempted to redirect that pressure onto OM. As the game passed the 60-minute mark, the ball stayed more and more on OM's half of the field, and if Inter's attacks betrayed their desperation and lacked precision as a result, they still accumulated. It was a matter of time, it seemed, before OM would break.

(Here's a shorter link if this video doesn't work) 

And break they did. On a corner, OM failed to clear or play an offsides trap appropriately - Jeremy Morel lingered too long after covering the near post - and Diego Milito ended up scavenging a boxed-around ball right in front of the net. 1-0 Inter, 1-1 on the aggregate, and all was to play for with 15 minutes left of regulation time.

A 1-1 score in a cup tie offers a lot of possibilities. Last week, Lyon failed to break down Nicosia, went through to extra time, and after 120 minutes, lost a penalty shootout. Last night, Bayern Munich tied the aggregate against Basel at 1-1 10 minutes into the match, and then proceeded to score 6 more goals from just before halftime to the rest of the game. With 15 minutes left, it looked more likely like OM-Inter would follow the Lyon blueprint.

The game opened up though. Whereas in the build-up to the goal, it was all Inter pressure on OM, with a Chinese-water torture intensity as happens often, afterwards both sides took opportunities and missed scoring and taking the aggregate lead by narrow margins. The clock entered the 3 minutes of extra time, and it looked sure that the two teams would play another 30 minutes.

Except Steve Mandanda, who had made a series of great saves for OM throughout the night, solidifying his reputation as one of the top keepers in France, sent a long ball off a free kick in his end. One of those typical balls towards the opposition's penalty area that usually gets cleared easily, or boxed around a bit, or controlled and then lost, or doesn't even land on the pitch. Nothing to get excited about, if not for the context.

And then the ball hit its target more or less, glancing off the back of Brandao, a substitute striker who had come on two minutes earlier and had been added back to Marseille's team from Brazil only in the winter break. Brandao, a strong fellow, had been backing up towards the Inter goal to maintain position and get the ball; he turned as the ball neared, hit him on the back, and fell perfectly to his left foot. He had a half-step on the defender, had his countryman Julio Cesar guessing the wrong way, and blasted a straight shot past the keeper and into the net. 1-1. Match.

Well, there was some tomfoolery in the aftermath. Inter pressed, got a breakaway, and thinking only of the moment, Mandanda went and tackled Giuseppe Pazzini, leading to a yellow card and a penalty. The penalty wasn't a big deal - Pazzini scored, but the match ended there, with OM winning 2-2 with the away goals tiebreaker (they scored one, Inter didn't). Mandanda, however, already had a yellow card earlier in the game, meaning he drew a red as well and as such a one-game suspension from the next round of the Champions League, where Marseille will have two games in the quarterfinal.

(Mandanda's quote regarding this, as per Ligue1.com: "It's hard...I'm above all disappointed with my first yellow. The assistant referee told me to go and get the ball, I did, and the ref gave me a yellow. APOEL Nicosia would be a good draw for us." - In other words, sucks I got a card, I hope we draw the team from the tiny country that everybody wants to play. Cliches didn't completely pop after the Brandao goal.)

All the same, Marseille's run in the Champions League epitomizes much of the joy in sports, and also the folly in trying to read too much into it. Marseille made the knockout round due to an improbable turn of events - they came back from 2-0 down away to Borussia Dortmund to win that match 2-3 with two goals in the final five minutes, allowing them to just over leap Olympiacos. In the first leg at home against Inter, Andre Ayew scored the only goal and winner on a corner on just about the last situation of the match, a corner. And now this match. OM continues to struggle in Ligue1, and this will have to provide a huge spark for them to catch Lille or anybody else for the 3rd or 4th place spots. Their season will still probably be considered a frustrating slog, a disappointment for a dominant team such as OM.

At the same time, they haven't made the Champions League quarterfinals since they won the whole thing in 1993. Their advance helps Ligue 1's UEFA coefficient for future European qualifications. And while they don't want to draw Barcelona or Real Madrid, just like everybody else, and Bayern Munich is probably a cut above them, nobody else among the quarterfinalists - Apoel, AC Milan, Chelsea or Napoli, Benfica, CSKA Moscow if they shock Real - is beyond Marseille's grasp.

Considering Marseille's luck, it wouldn't be surprising to see them get a winnable fixture next round, and no more surprising to see them actually win it. The last chance paid off, and Marseille lives to fight out of another corner. Football means little more than that.

Another Mustard Squirt - Dijon's woes and W27 in Ligue 1

I watched the Dijon-PSG game with the intention of writing about PSG and their quest for the title. The match encapsulated much of the ups and downs of the capital club's season, and I had several observations that might have even been worthwhile. But events of the game compel me to write instead about Dijon, and so the only observation I'll share on PSG is that Carlo Ancelotti looks like a cross between David Gregory of Meet the Press and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and like he doesn't have to try very hard to talk like Marlon Brando in the Godfather.

+ =

Anyway, to Dijon. Dijon is one of the three teams who were promoted to Ligue 1 after last season. All three reside in the bottom half of the table, more likely to face relegation than any scent of European competition (Evian is in 10th, but only 6 points ahead of the drop zone; Ajaccio was 20th for much of the year but has been hot since the winter break, and now sits at 13th). Dijon has more or less fulfilled the role of newly-promoted side struggling to stay up; they've won games sporadically, have one of the leakiest defenses in Ligue 1, and faced the threat of falling back into the bottom three with a loss against PSG. The big story in L'Equipe about Dijon before their home match a week ago against Montpelier revolved around the pressure Head Coach Patrice Carteron faced regarding his choice of Stéphane Renaud as athletic trainer, a friend who, so the story goes, the Dijon president believes to be a guru for Carteron, influencing his decisions in a malicious way. It's only the sort of story that emerges about a struggling team.

This is Dijon's first year in Ligue 1, as best I can tell, and their run has been unremarkable. They managed to draw Montpelier last week, and probably hoped for the same against PSG yesterday. 2 points against the best two teams in the league, even at home, is not a bad harvest for a team staving off relegation. When in a position such as Dijon's, ambition and greed have to be traded for savvy and patience.

Patience defined most of Dijon's approach. For the first 40 minutes, they held up against a PSG team that looked reasonably slick in attacking, with Javier Pastore, Nene, and Marcos Ceara applying cutting moves and pressure up the right side. Dijon's attacks often lacked bite, with frontman Brice Jovial and midfielder Florin Berenguer missing a couple decent chances. Then, by fortune if not by plan, Dijon drew a red card against Mohamed Sissoko for a slightly late tackle that may or may not have merited a red, but looked bad in any case. This slowed PSG before the half, and Dijon could feel pretty good about going into the break 0-0 and with a man advantage.

The second half got off on the wrong foot for Dijon - PSG retrenched and played more individually, and yet still scored a goal in the first five minutes of the half - but the forced desperation led to increased pressure against the league leaders, and at last on a corner in the 75th minute, Dijon's perseverance paid off. They tied the match at 1-1. PSG was on their back foot. The draw and the point seemed all but clinched. All's well in Burgundy!

Except the flow of the match encouraged Dijon to get ahead of themselves. They continued to attack and put pressure, which opened themselves up to PSG as well. The last five minutes of regulation time especially were free-flowing and open, and no one could predict the final just yet. Fortune is said to favor the bold, and so Dijon went for three points and a bigger cushion.

In the 90th minute, Dijon earned a corner. Up a man, they decided to send all 10 of their outfield players into the PSG half of the field in hopes of pulling off the win. It was risky, but a well-applied dose of pressure could have put off the risk. And then the squirting happened:




(If video doesn't work, link is here)

Dijon had no fight left for the last minute or two after that. PSG staved off Montpelier to remain at the top of the table, and Dijon stayed in 18th on goal differential. It's just the sort of lump you take in your first year in the big league, I guess.

Kick around the rest of the Ligue:

- For all my mawkishness regarding Lyon, OL reinserted themselves in the race for 3rd with a win over Lille. I only saw the second half, where Lyon had to hold on to their 2-1 lead, and then had to work a man down for the last 20 minutes. Nevertheless, they staved off the draw or the defeat, ending Lille's faint title hopes and throwing the race for the last Champions League spot even wider open. Lille holds onto 3rd, but four teams are within four points, including Lyon, and two other pedigreed clubs (Marseille and Bordeaux) lurk eight back.

- If week 26 saw a bunch of upsets and order overturners (Dijon tying Montpelier, Nancy beating Lyon, Evian beating St. Etienne, Auxerre tying Lille, Nice beating Bordeaux), week 27 marked a return to hierarchy. Marseille lost to Ajaccio on Friday night, and Toulouse and Rennes both gave up two points at home to lesser sides, but all the other top-half vs. bottom-half matches saw the better teams winning. This doesn't lead to any grand insight, though.

- The week to come: Marseille looks to hold a 1-0 lead in the Champions League when they visit Inter away. Otherwise, nothing on for the French clubs until the weekend, where we have a few regional derbies (Lorient-Brest in Bretagne (Brittany), Lille-Valenciennes in the North, and most especially St. Etienne-Lyon in the Rhone Valley showdown), an interesting showdown between Rennes and Toulouse in the hunt for 3rd or 4th, and matches away for PSG and Montpelier against Caen and Nancy, respectively, matches that should be won.

TRtMtR posting wise, we should have something up after the Marseille match, and haven't decided on our focus for the Ligue 1 fixtures. Also, we're hoping to have our first contribution in a new series from a different writer, which should be exciting.

Until then.

Wilting Giants - Lyon and Marseille's Struggles

When the draw came in for the second round of the Champions League, the French sides rejoiced. Olympique Marseille drew a heavyweight side in 2010 champions Inter Milan, but a heavyweight who had been struggling for much of the year (the two teams have had mirrored seasons - terrible start, big midseason push, and then a backstretch malaise). Olympique Lyon, meanwhile, got the prize draw for the second place teams from the group stage: Apoel Nicosia, a Cyprus team that had a surprising run to the top of their somewhat mediocre group, and hence a team ripe to be beaten by a classy side like Lyon. Both French teams likely viewed the draw as a chance to revitalize their season, earn big box-office receipts in reaching the quarterfinals, and keep alive their faint chances of an improbably quadruple season (Champions League title, Ligue 1 title, Coupe de France, Coupe de la Ligue - the first two would have been the longshots, and they play each other in the final of the last one).

Judging by this week's mid-week results, that hasn't worked out so well for them.

Marseille has fallen back into a funk after a 17-game undefeated streak (including Ligue 1 and their various cups). Starting with a 2-2 draw at home against Lyon in February (a match OM led 2-0), Marseille hasn't won a match in Ligue 1. They had a Coupe de France win over a lower division club and a 1-0 win in the home half of their fixture with Inter that they snagged at the last second, but nothing else to boast of. Included in their losses was a 0-1 defeat at home to Toulouse, a direct rival for a European finish this year (top 3 for Champions League, 4th for Europa League), and a 1-0 loss away at Brest, a mid-level squad lacking glamor.

The one thing OM had in their back pocket was a game in hand away to Evian TG, another mid-table squad. Cancelled in the freezing first half of February, the game was replayed on Tuesday. Missing Loic Remy and Mathias Valbuena, two key attacking players, OM fell again without scoring a goal, losing 2-0. And there goes that card. Now all they have left is the injury excuse and the hope that they can be slightly less out of form than Inter next week so as to qualify for the quarterfinals, a stage they haven't reached since they won the Champions League in 1993.

Lyon has less to fall back on. For one, they don't have major injury problems except for Yohann Gourcuff, their top signing and top-paid player who has scored only one goal this year. They also have a tougher road in the Coupe de France, facing PSG in two weeks (whereas Marseille gets another lower-division squad), and a big stretch coming up of tough Ligue 1 matches. Since that same draw with OM, Lyon has drawn once in Ligue 1 (the ballyhooed 4-4 match against PSG) and lost thrice, two of those matches against relegation-threatened teams. 

Lyon had the 1-0 lead over upstart Apoel to fall back on. That lasted 9 minutes in last night's match, by which point Apoel had scored. In some sense, at 1-1 in the second match of a cup tie, the away team has the advantage. If they score once to tie up the second match at 1-1 and the aggregate at 2-1, the home team has to score twice to advance. If the home team scores again to go up 2-1 on the overall, their lead is much more tenuous for the same reason (as the away team will advance on away goals in a 2-2 aggregate). All of which is a garbled way of saying even though Lyon couldn't sit back anymore with a 1-1 overall score, they weren't in bad position.

Despite that, they fell into the penalty kick shootout, and in the crapshoot Apoel came out ahead 4-3 with a ball in hand. Lyon fell out of the Champions League for 2011/12, and have to face an increasingly likely scenario that they don't climb back in it for 2012/13.

Which would be something of a big deal for French football. Lyon has been the dominant club of the past decade plus, and have played Champions League football 10 years in a row. This marked their 9th year in a row in the knockout phase, with their semifinal appearance two years ago their best result of the run. Lyon has been a dependable foil to some of Europe's top clubs, getting knocked out by Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, AS Roma, and FC Porto over that run (to be fair, they did knock out Real Madrid two years ago, part of what led to Manuel Pelligrini getting fired and Jose Mourinho coming over from Inter).

Now, Lyon's (and Marseille's) form is poor and both PSG and Montpelier have raised the bar far away from the pack. While either of those teams could fall back, and Montpelier especially can't be expected to occupy the top of the table year in and year out, PSG appears sure to enjoy the same sort of sudden consistency and relevance as Manchester City in the Premier League, sealing off at least one Champions League spot each year. The repercussions of missing the Champions League are severe as well for teams like OL and OM; the lost revenue hampers their chances of staying in budget this year and then again restricts spending for the next year. Even for the top teams, success in football appears to be cyclical in large part because success more directly fuels future financial well-being and success than it does in the states. Between increased competition and current struggles, these two clubs could get stuck in a down cycle pretty easily.

Of course, either could straighten the ship out in a hurry and make a strong run up the table, at least locking down a Europa League berth apiece and holding off the creditors and the threats for a year. If I had to bet on one of these teams making top 3 and catching Lille, I'd go with Marseille, just because of the injuries (Remy and Valbuena are big deals for the club) and their more favorable schedule. And because Lyon looked so uninspired in person.

The two Olympically significant clubs' drama offers one of the more interesting story lines for the rest of the year in Ligue 1. It'll be interesting to see if, 5 weeks from now when they meet in the Coupe de la Ligue, either will be able to bask in their renewed good form, or if they'll be swapping horror stories about a season gone wrong.

Hoisted on their own Petard? Nancy's Revival and W26 in L1

Up until Saturday's kickoff, it looked like a scary week for the Association Sportive Nancy Lorraine, ASNL. The Northeast squad, which has finished in the bottom half of the table 5 out of the last 6 years (marking their promotion back to Ligue 1), had fallen into the relegation battle from the first weeks of this season, alternating positive three-week periods with similar slumps. Saturday prior to this weekend, they took a 2-0 loss against Evian TG, another relegation battler, their third loss in a row. They fell back into the relegation zone, stuck in 18th place (out of 20; bottom three go out).

Nancy's fans had enough. It was bad enough their city fell out of the running to host Euro2016 Championship matches. Now their team was nosediving out of Ligue 1. They had to make their voices heard. So, like any reasonable set of supporters would do, a group of 60 some-odd diehards went to Nancy's practice facilities the next day to complain. A set of 30 of them broke into the locker room and lit a firecracker (the word for firecracker in French: pétard, which means the same thing in English but is never used except in the phrase I'm using as the title). Once the internet collapses and we all return to our pre-Communications Age ways, I expect we'll all express ourselves in similarly eloquent ways, through the development of a firecracker-symbolized language.

Despite the obvious fireworks, this event did not actually lead to any damage. In fact, the supporters and the team held a little meeting after the firecracker incident to clear the air, and everybody agreed they were on the same page, with the same goal: stay up in Ligue 1. All's well that ends well.

Well, except that looming for Nancy as the launching pad for their return to form would be a home match against Olympique Lyon. It's never reassuring for a bottom-half team to realize they have to play a top-5 team when in dire circumstances. It is further complicated when Nancy had a record of zero wins, twelve losses, and one draw against Lyon since returning to Ligue 1 six and a half years ago. And when Lyon themselves were struggling and badly in need of a win to keep their hopes of Champions League qualification for next year alive? And Lyon had just put up 4 goals on Paris St.-Germain and felt they were robbed of a victory in that game? And Nancy had two victories at home all year (out of thirteen)? It did not look good, to say the least.

Lyon before the game, the last time they really looked like a threat.

Fortunately for Nancy, they got a dull-edged version of Lyon. Even though OL featured the same 11-men who had lit up PSG at home a week before, they played against Nancy without a sense of sharpness, without posing danger to the home side. The first half unfolded in a mute manner, with Lyon holding much of the possession and Nancy looking more threatening on the counter. I sensed the constant possibility that Lyon would wake up, get it together, and prove they were a European-caliber team, but except for the occasional sharp free kick (defender Bakary Koné missed a chance to push a free kick ball in from the back post that was Lyon's best chance), they never did it. At halftime, one could see that Lyon was probably the better club, but that Nancy was even odds or better to pull out the win.

And so the underdog's blueprint was fulfilled perfectly. Nancy continued to threaten on the break, Lyon continued to possess. Lyon earned a corner at 65', didn't convert, Nancy went the other way and earned a free kick. Yohan Mollo sent a dangerous ball into the box that was cleared out by Lyon. Mollo took the subsequent corner kick and it found Nancy defender Sebastian Puygrenier's head and from there the back of the net.

If the first goal wasn't necessarily in the run of play, though still deserved, the second one emerged properly. Nancy took their 1-0 lead as a chance to increase the ball pressure they placed on Lyon (though also to milk the clock with injuries more, alas), and their aggressive defense was rewarded. After holding off another Lyon corner, Nancy sprung on the break, midfielder Djamel Bakar got the ball in space on the right wing, cut in, and finished cleanly past Hugo Lloris. 2-0 Nancy, and that was all there was to it.

Unfortunately for Nancy (and in its way, fortunately for Lyon), they picked a rough week to win a game, as underdogs dominated on Saturday. ASNL pulled up to 17th place, earmarked for remaining in Ligue 1, but only due to a goal difference tiebreaker. Of their remaining 12 games, five come in Nancy and seven away. They still have games home against Montpelier, PSG, and 5th-placed St. Etienne, and away to Bordeaux, Lille, and Marseille. Their only advantage facing this sort of schedule is that in the relegation battle, the default is for teams to lose, so any wins Nancy can put in the bank will go a long way. They are on 26 points right now - last year, 46 were needed to stay up, though that mark looks like it'll be more around 42 or so this year.

Nancy has pulled off a surprise or two this year, and the win over Lyon isn't their biggest shocker (that would be the 0-1 win away at PSG in November). This one might be more crucial, though, coming at this late date in the season and with the team needing to build momentum for the final third of the season.

More importantly, it should keep their fans from lighting any more firecrackers in the wrong place. Though at least ASNL know where to look if they need someone to provide a spark.

Other Notes 

- Montpelier Herault SC gave back their seat at the head of the table to PSG, drawing away to Dijon while the capital club romped over Ajaccio 4-1. A Montpelier player was quoted a week ago, after Montpelier assumed the top spot, saying that they'd almost rather be behind PSG than have the leaders' bullseye on them. While there's some competitive logic to this, it also can be something of a psychological crutch, and hopefully Montpelier won't continue to hobble on it. Then again, they were missing Ligue 1 goalscoring leader Oliver Giroud (suspended) and another key attacking player in Younes Belhanda (injured), so perhaps they can be excused. With Caen and Nancy the next two weeks, there becomes more urgency for MHSC to pick up six points out of six.

- A blah week for the top half of the table in general it was. Lille blew a 2-0 lead late to gain only a draw, blowing another chance to reinsert themselves into the title race. AS Saint-Etienne lost 0-2 at home, halting their strong run towards the European spots. Toulouse beat Marseille 1-0 in Marseille, making it all the more unlikely that the perennial Champions League entrant will miss out next year. Bordeaux lost 1-2 at home to Nice, another costly chance wasted.

Besides Toulouse, the only team in this group to earn three points was Rennes, whom we focused on last week. In a Breton Derby, SRFC scored twice in the second half to beat fading Lorient. Rennes is now even on points with St. Etienne and Toulouse and ahead of them in 4th on goal differential. They play Toulouse in two weeks at home, with a game against relegation zone Auxerre in between. If Rennes is still in 4th at the end of the month, they could be a threat to Lille, with an easy April schedule to launch from.

- As for Lyon, I'm saving them to maybe write more after their Champions League match this Wednesday. They also host Lille in "le choc de la semaine" (the match of the week) Saturday night. In fact, they've got a hell of a month coming up. Which makes their drab defeat to Nancy all the more disappointing for the team that has been the best in France this millennium. Maybe their fans need to hoist some pétards in the right place, if you know what I'm saying.


(Note: not actually saying Lyon fans should light firecrackers anywhere. I don't want anyone getting hurt.)