"You can't go out and buy a style of play, a culture and an identity"- PSG, Ligue 1 and French football 2011-2012

Will Qatari millions make PSG an unstoppable team? Bernard Tapie doesn't think so (quote's his).
Will Lille keep their title?
Will Marseille make a player out of Gignac? Lol.
Will Lyon manage to end up in the top 3 spots like they have for the past 12 years?
Will the French team give us as many lols as they did last year?

Love love love that Bernard Tapie quote!!! Of all people!!!
Sad that ESPN/Setanta don't show this anymore. After really getting into the Bundesliga last year it would be nice to give Ligue 1 a go. Can't get on with Serie A so that's out, therefore I'm relying almost entirely on you Jibe, and baadronixx as well.

so PSG euphoria deflates after just one game, after losing against usual "beta noire" Lorient

Yup. they are also one of three teams who've failed to score tonight, with ajaccio (newly promoted) and valenciennes. then again the pressure on them must be insanely high seeing as every one from the media to the players to the fans expects so much from them and thinks they're going to win.

they'll do good anyways. can't wait to see pastore play for them (should start playing towards end of august, beginning of september)

yup, no doubt - although I am a bit skeptical concerning Pastore's ability to fit in PSG' style of play and in the Ligue 1 in general. Tbh, I've never seen the guy play and from all accounts the guy walks on water so maybe it won't matter too much in the end

walking on water will come in handy on the wet wednesdays at wherever the french equivalent of stoke is, i guess

Yay Jibe!

there were a couple of huge strikes from outside the box in today's matches. and lisandro's goal was really great too, just touching the ball while losing his balance. i'd try and youtube them but they're usually down a couple minutes after :(

ok so dijon, playing in ligue 1 for the first time in their history were thrashed 5-1 by rennes, a team known more for their huge defense than an impressive attack. there were also 2 missed penalty kicks, 1 for each side. and dijon's first 2 goals in ligue 1, when the score was still 0-0, were called off-side!

Jibe, I was wondering today about Jéremie Brechet. PSV's got defensive trouble, and I always liked him when he played for PSV. Very likable guy too, it seemed. He went back to Sochaux, does he still play there regularly?

what is jonathan wilson alluding to?

In 2002 there were scandalous reports of off-the-field activities (it's worth asking why, against Uruguay, the usually equitable Thierry Henry was so frustrated he was sent off for the only time in his international career)

I wondered that. Then again I would never have described Henry as "usually equitable" tbh.

i still like henry, he certainly leavens his charming moments with episodes of miserable shirking but it would be too much like hypocrisy to condemn that

and i can't help respect any foreigner whose english is better than the average domestic player

I hope Wilson didn't intend 'so frustrated' to be read sarcastically, that would really be an awful scandal.

and i can't help respect any foreigner whose english is better than the average domestic player

all of them bar tevez then?

tevez would like to let us know that he 'does his talking on the pitch'

slow start to the season as is often the case in the Ligue 1 - bigger teams under-performing while an underdog enjoys a brief spell at the top (Montpellier this year)

I didn't tune in until Lille's equalizer through Chedjou (around 70'?) but that was a great finish - was the whole match good?

Oh look, Gervinho's in the Lille dressing room. Are suspended players normally excused from attending away matches? Knew I wouldn't be able to escape the Arsenal result even in another league.

Back from a couple of weeks on holidays (where I learned, amongst other things, where the name nakhchivan came from), I see ligue 1 is up to its usual things, with unusual leaders, as baaderonixx has pointed out. Marseille is not looking good, their defence is not there at all (4 games played, they let in 2 goals twice and three more today). Alou Diarra was supposed to bring them defensive stability but right now, it's not working.
Lisandro Lopez suffered an injury against leaders Montpellier yesterday, at some point they said he might be out for a few months, but apparently it won't be that long. Which is good.
Pastore started for PSG today and ended up giving 2 decisive passes, good on him.

ha, where did you go on holiday?

armenia & georgia, so close to nakhchivan. i felt kind of silly knowing the name cos i damn well wasn't going to tell my friends "oh yeah nakhchivan, same name as this guy who knows a lot about football on this board i read"

armenia and georgia, my fearsome elder sisters

You go on the best holidays, Jibe

@nakh : your elder sisters may be fearsome, i just found them lovely.
@ ismael: i have to admit i've been lucky in the past 12 or so months in that i had quite a lot of free time and enough money left over to enjoy myself here and there. being a student is great for traveling :)

*jealous*

you don't have to be, the good times are over, i start working in a couple of weeks.

my condolences...

so back on topic, turns out Erding is finally staying at PSG - which I believe is a very good thing. The guy is just low on confidence and I'm sure he would have made wonders for whoever we would have sold him to. Hoarau is the one who needs to go imho.

Joe Cole to Lille! Usually it's the EPL that gets players from Ligue 1, not the other way around. I'm repeating something I read on another board, but Lille can thank PSG for getting Cole, as them buying Pastore has probably made the league more attractive. And well, obv i guess it's better for Cole to play for a team qualified for the CL and in title contention than to stay on the bench at Liverpool. Lille is also getting Jelen for free apparently (Auxerre striker, quite good but often injured. Could be very useful as he's used to playing with Pedretti, who now runs Lille's midfield).

Meanwhile, Lyon are on the verge of selling Pjanic to AS Roma, which saddens me to no end.

also, baaderonixx, do you dislike Hoarau or do you just think he's not a good fit for PSG? i agree with what you say about erding, a good player with low confidence, but hoarau is also quite good, the only problem being that he needs to be paired with another player upfront for maximum efficiency, which isn't the way Psg play.

xp

yeah, when was the last time an English player came to play in Ligue 1? Strange but exciting signing for them

Pjanic sale is indeed a perplexing transfer - really felt this was going to be a big season at Lyon. Is OL actually planning to sign someone with that money?

only memories i have of an english player in ligue 1 is chris waddle. oh, and tyrone mears more recently. i hope for lille cole is gonna be more like waddle than mears.

pjanic's sale is not good, i really like the player. the thing is, OL repeatedly said they needed to lower their wage bill and get some cash. pjanic is one of the only bankable players, so off he goes. especially since there are quite a few players who can play in the same position (gourcuff, ederson, grenier), even though they're all injured right now. i can only hope that now aulas isn't going to use that money to buy ndinga at an overinflated price though.

might maybe want get a back-up striker with Lisandro out?

re. Hoarau - a bit of both actually, the guy is clumsy and slow, and I never really felt he brought that much as a support striker. With Pastore in and guys like Nene and Menez on the wings, I think we need that kind of player even less

'irish' tony cascarino

wait i thought roma were skint? cracking signing tho, hopefully means totti can finally go to that big place in the sky reserved for annoying italian playmakers

they're def not gonna go for a back-up striker - briand can be used as a striker, and so can young players like belfoldil and lacazette. i'm really afraid that they're gonna go all out for ndinga. there are no back-up defensive midfielders in case gonalons is injured or gets a red card and they've been chasing ndinga for a while but auxerre is toying with lyon and asking for prohibitive prices.

as for hoarau, what you say makes sense. gameiro is far more suited to the players you have in midfield. as is erding. but i kinda like hoarau, that big lumbering player.

xp : tony cascarino!!!! i really liked him when marseille were in ligue 2, i had a football card of him that was like one of 8-yr old me's most prized possessions lol
roma may be skint but they're not paying that much for pjanic, about 11€ from what the rumours say. and yeah, great deal for them if it goes through

yeah, roma are skint but 11€ is a bit too cheap for pjanic, obv it's 11M€

still too cheap

Are Roma skint? What happened to their big American takeover?

xp to nakh: yes, that dude is gonna be worth a lot more in little to no time. the thing is, OL have said since the beginning of the transfer season that they'd be letting go of big salaries and stuff. seeing as how they couldn't get rid of the really big salaries (no one was likely to buy cris, lisandro and gourcuff weren't going anywhere, kallstrom is happy where he is and who wouldn't, big salary and low expectations etc), they got rid of pjanic. this is a big mistake on their part.

was Pjanic actually amongst the big salaries?

roma not skint, new owners have basically bought a new starting xi during the summer (half of them today basically). pjanic really surprised me, came out of nowhere. and ironically menez went to psg on the cheap (and borriello might too), only making lyon's competition stronger.

this is what it's come to

feating on everton and chelsea's backwash

oh yeah i forgot they got new owners. skele-burg, pjanic, bojan and kjaer -- no team has done much better this summer.

posted that on this shit thread

football thread posting conventions suck. always think the off-season thread is the youtube thread

xp: naah, pjanic was like 10th biggest salary at 1.8M€ or so a yr. I really liked this player who scored a few vvv important goals for Lyon (he equalized against madrid in the return leg to qualify OL for the qf of the CL for ex) but who was also cpable of disappearing for entire matches.
Anyways apparently Lyon bought a defensive midfielder, Fofana, who was one of France's U20 better players at the WC this yr. it seems they're going back to what they used to do so well, buying young players with promise for cheap.

Lille beat St Etienne 3-1, two goals from Hazard, including one with a nice dribble between 2 defenders. And I'm sure you'll want to know how Joe Cole did: came on as a sub and set up the third goal, so I guess he's adapting nicely.

Lyon is on top of Ligue 1!!! It's been a while since that had happened. Meanwhile, OM is dead last. It seems that winning Ligue 1 is kind of a curse on teams, cos ever since Bordeaux won in 09, they've been playing like shit. And Marseille seems to be suffering the same fate. Lille should maybe take some time to think about that.

In other news, Pastore is not only in Paris cos he likes partying and shopping and seems to adapt quite well to his new team. last week he scored the only goal in their match against Brest, this week he scored the first of two against Evian Thonon Gaillard who were up 2-0 after 30 mins.

joe cole scored the winner v. lorient (presuming it doesn't change in the next two minutes).

FT Lille [1 - 1] Lorient
34' [1 - 0] J. Cole
90' [1 - 1] K. Monnet-Paquet

You jinxed it Sam!

lol up the lorient

What was the Montpellier keeper thinking for Pastore's goal?

'i <3 oil money'

Was Pjanic any good when he played in France? Cos he's been hopeless the 2 1/2 games I've seen of Roma this season (I have yet to watch 2nd half of Parma/Roma so perhaps he scores a hat trick or something)

he doesn't... though roma have been dreadful all around and to single out pjanic would still be a bit unfair and premature imo.

Well to be honest he's kind of inconsistent. He's done some great things at Lyon but sometimes it's like he disappears from the game. Give him some time though. He only played a couple or so of games since the beginning of the season for Lyon and he was starting to be quite good. But yeah, don't expect wonders from him all the time.

Jibe, is Brechet still around? Asked you earlier but I don't think you saw it :) How's he doing? I always liked him at PSV.

admiring pandemic's efforts to watch every minute of football played in Europe this season

admiring jealous of pandemic's efforts

Sorry LBI, i had indeed missed your previous message. Brechet is still around yeah, plays at Sochaux. I don't think he's played a single game this season though, he's missing on all the action (Sochaux have been beaten 6-2 by Rennes and 4-1 by Auxerre on last two gamedays). Dunno if its for injury reasons or something else. He played quite a bit more in the past 2 seasons (Sochaux's website says 33 and 20 games in 09-10/10-11). Can't really tell you much more than that though, sorry.

Thanks! I got the impression he wasn't playing much. I always thought it a shame he didn't make it at PSV.

Usually when PSV sign foreign players they give them some sort of basic Dutch course. So that Romario, in his day, knew how to say "I'm tired" in Dutch :) But Brechet went to a convent for five days for a language course and his Dutch was amazing!

That sounds so unfootballer-like, going to a convent...

im sure supermario tried to break into a couple in his time

This Joe Cole interview is rather nice. Well done Joe!

thx for that ismael

Yeah that's very nice

You have to broaden your horizons sometimes. Experience different things. Like I had frogs' legs the other day, and they were really nice. Just like oily chicken wings. Beautiful. There's a place in central Lille that does them. You should try them.

:-)

Just catching Lille-Lyon highlights - love the power Sow put on that backheel.

where do you catch ligue 1 highlights? i've seen them on france 24 before but they're so short

wish wish wish there was a 60 minute weekly bundesliga/serie a/ligue1/la liga show, 15 minutes each, DL and watch whenever

I resort to seeking out individual matches on 101greatgoals. I can usually watch a full match or two from each of those leagues each week except Ligue 1, feel more out of the loop on the French game than any other.

There are a couple of French shows with highlights from most of the games but I don't know if they're available anywhere online (well they probably are, just dunno where), like Jour de foot. It really annoys me cos I can't watch any French football now. I've resorted to seeing the 101gg vids but they only show the goals.

is this Olvier Giroud guy any good?

I don't get the chance to watch a lot of French football anymore, but from what I read and hear, he is quite good. Good tall forward to whom you can cross the ball. Don't really know about his actual technical skill, but apparently he scored quite a ice goal this weekend (and later said that it may not have been what he was trying for but u know, still a goal). Montpellier got him from Ligue 2 where he was best goalscorer in 09-10. Some are saying that he should get called up to play for France, to take over Guillaume Hoarau's role (which right now is being the bench) as tall guy who can score headers.

Have you left France, Jibe?

Yup, and with the time difference it's impossible for me to see any games. I basically just watch the highlights on 101gg or other and read a few blogs/forums.
Iq there a site that shows games after they've been played? Like a youtube for football?

oooh where'd you go homie?

I work in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. They sure do love the EPL here. So many axis have a Man U/Lvpool/Chelsea/Arsenal flag or something hanging around. It's actually quite fun to talk about football with them.

Do you have an EPL team already, or is moving there the thing to make you acquire one? Also: are there any Bolton fans?

I thought we had established that nobody East of Norwich wanted to watch Bolton?

Shhh, don't tell that to the target market.

Kuala Lumpar! If I'm ever in yr neck of the woods etc.

@Ismael: don't really have an English team though I do kind of follow Arsenal a bit more than the other teams thanks to my dad. I don't however think there are tons of Bolton fans here. When I was watching the rugby WC final and I asked some friends why all the malaysians were for NZ (fuckers! France deserved to win :D), they replied that they usually liked the teams that won or were successful. So yeah, not really Bolton.

@ahh: sure, do tell if u ever come to this side of the world

Diego Maradona has questioned whether Paris Saint-Germain's sporting director Leonardo is a football man or an oil dealer. In a rant he said: "I wonder if he is a player, coach, agent or oil dealer. I do not understand."
Full story: Metro

My parents are off to Paris at the weekend. I was trying to persuade my dad to attend PSG-Toulouse on Saturday night and report back, but in light of day this seems like a bit of a terrible idea.

Montpellier owner Louis "Lulu" Nicollin says PSG were "fools" to hire Carlo Ancelotti. "I laugh at them." Lulu says Ancelotti will waste money on buying failed big names from Italy and England. "He will buy the ones he remembers from his days with the wops and the corned-beef eaters. PSG are subnormal."

He's got our number

Hhaha Loulou Nicollin is one of the more colourful club owners in France. Has quite a few entertaining and/or brash quotes to his name.
Also Ismael don't send your father to watch Toulouse, they are one of the most boring Ligue 1 clubs. PSG on the other hand is all fun all the time these days

haven't watched a ligue 1 game in forever. tonight is lyon vs marseille, respectively 4th and 5th in the rankings and a few points off the top three : psg, montpellier, lille. psg won 3-1 yesterday evening and had a busy transfer period considering they got maxwell from barcelona and thiago motta from inter. and carlo ancelotti as coach (but that happened even before the transfer period opened). montpellier is still a very surprising second, 3 points off psg. lille, lyon and marseille are very much hoping that this surprise team starts dropping points soon because they want the cl spots. so yeah basically tonight's game is quite big for both teams. marseille is one point behind lyon who staged an unexpected comeback at lorient in the coupe de la ligue semi final, giving them a berth for the final where they'll face.... marseille.

lyon's defense is kinda screwed lately: lovren injured, mensah and koné away at the african nations cup, cris came back from an injury, which meant they played their last 3-4 games with 18yr old samuel umtiti who did a very good job. meanwhile cris put on a pitiful display as has become the norm lately. his age is v much starting to show. tonight's defense should hopefully be umtiti koné. as for the offense, it's still doing quite well. gomis scored a beautiful goal last weekend. this team is interesting in that they're playing with a lot of youngsters who trained at the club.

as for marseille, they sold lucho back to porto for a few millions. he never lived up to the expectations but it must hurt considering how much they'd paid for him. with gignac still playing awfully, their offensive line looked quite depleted but brandao came back from brazil (he'd left about a year ago after being accused of rape - don't know what exactly happened to his case).

Thanks for the tip Jibe, I'll try to watch some of this.

just so you know, lyon can sometimes look quite good while attacking (and sometimes god knows why they look completely helpless) but marseille hasn't really been setting high standards of brilliant football this season though apparently they're getting better. so don't blame me if this game sucks :D

Sweet finish from Brandão cushioned back into the opposite corner, 2-0 OM.

No wait, Gomis makes it 2-1.

2-2, silly og with last kick of the half.

Lille 4        Bordeaux 5
               2' Maurice-Belay N.
8' Rozehnal D.	 
               17' Obraniak L.
               50' Maurice-Belay N.
               60' Gouffran Y.
65' Hazard E.
75' Debuchy M.
90' Roux N.
               90+2' Obraniak L.

seems kind of cruel

hahahaha seems awesome to me as a lyon fan.
best part in there is that lille sold obraniak to bordeaux this winter for like a million bucks, not much more. and then he goes and scores 2 (including the 5th goal in extra time) +1 assist against them. talked about being pissed off against your old team ^^

i feel like i haven't posted anything of worth lately but then again i really never ever see matches anymore so its not like i have tons to say.

tonight sees paris playing against montpellier, 1st place team against 2nd. should be interesting. they're only a point apart and a few points ahead of the group of teams fighting for 3rd (and last CL qualifying spot) place. this season's champion is most likely going to be either of those teams (more likely than not psg but who knows). for those of you who are interested, look out for giroud who's having a terrific season and has a shot at a place on the french national team. apparently montpellier aren't doing as good as they used to at the beginning of the season when they were the most prolific attacking side but still should be a nice game.

I may try to track this down online tonight so thanks for the heads up.

Yes looking fwd to this one. Any good stream link would be appreciated

Well stream found, schoolboy French failing me, stadium pa seems to be playing 'sussodio'

l1nk?

Has Gerrard signed for PSG?

http://www.firstrowsports.eu/

about half way down page and then the first link after you choose the game is working for me atm

Ha! (xp)

geroud almost just scored

according to the graphics montpellier have won all 7 of their games in 2012 without conceding a single goal. They also have a Delap-esque long chucker.

Based on the opening 8 mins Montpellier are fucking awesome.

They appear to be playing with a pink and white football. Too metrosexual for the Prem I would wager.

the only piece of commentary i've understood so far is "ancelloti perplexed" Which tbf he always does look.

Nene and Menez have looked pretty slick for PSG. Is Pastore injured?

Alex just thwacked in a cannon free-kick from 30 yards. 1-0 PSG.

Outside of the right foot swerving all over the shop.

Alex <3

Belhanda (sp?) equaliser with the last action of the half! Game on!

The sight of Momo Sissoko hacking someone down is bringing back happy memories for me.

What?! I had no idea.

Tell me about it. I saw the name Sissoko on the PSG team sheet and assumed it was some other Sissoko. But no, it's Momo!

It's annoying how weak we are in that shielding/playing role now that Lucas is injured. We've been spoiled there for years. Who had it before Momo?

This Sissoko is highly rated and has been linked with moves all over for ~8 transfer windows now but still plays for Toulouse.

Salif Diao maybe? xp

Didi?

Oh yeah, of course Didi, shame on me. I was reading about him only last week too, losing about £200,000 in a single bet on the cricket last Ashes. Poor Didi.

That's some run in that position though - Hamann, Sissoko, Mascherano, Lucas and now Jay Spearing.

Spot the odd man out.

Portsmouth legend John Utaka!

John Utaka scores for Montpellier, 2-1 from a sweet Giroud cross. 8 mins left.

ha xp

making me realise that I am clueless as to who actually plays in Ligue 1, except for Joe Cole of course.

That was brilliant from Menez!

2-2 after a mazy run and cross.

That was outstanding.

“I bought Australia for £2,800 at 340 runs. That meant for every run over 340 you win £2,800, but for every run under you lose the same amount. Australia collapsed for 237. It is a score I remember well. It cost me £288,400. Every wicket felt like a stab in the heart. By the end of the night I felt like I’d been scalped.

“The next day, when I looked at the mess that was me in the mirror, I said ‘Didi, things have got to change’.”

Aw man, footballers and their cash so easily parted. Is that from his autobiography 'The Diddy Man'?

It is. It's why he felt the need to go all the way up to £2,800 is the thing. A grand per run just wasn't enough buzz I guess.

All over, 2-2. Really enjoyed that. Montpellier were excellent I thought. Giroud impressive touch and link play. Menez v good for PSG. Not sure watching 4 games in one day is entirely healthy but never mind.

Good game. Only enhanced by the French commentary style imo - those guys just aren't taking it at all seriously, e.g. chuckling about Alex taking a boot in the skull almost before he'd hit the ground.

Yeah they did seem to be enjoying themselves. Occasionally a third guy would speak up and I wondered if he was the French Gabriel Clarke/Jeff Shreeves but then decided that such a person probably doesn't exist in France.

the third guy is "paga", a former player who's like a joker, interviewing the coaches and players during the games :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Paganelli
he's kinda fun (and lame)...
that was a good game. Montpellier played well but paris managed it quite well (not so long ago they would have lost).
funny, I watched it in a bar, in paris, and there was a montpellier supporter who was very vocally supportive of his team and quite provocative until he realized it was a bit dangerous since he was alone and some tough guys from the hood started to yell at him... he got very quiet after that !

It looks like there's an epic Lyon-PSG game going on right now - 4-3 with ten mins to go. Can't watch myself but might be worth tuning in.

Gah, missed this. Is every game in Ligue 1 an epic? 5-4s 4-3s etc

nah not at all, unfortunately !
haven't seen yesterday's PSG game but apparently it was epic.
Paris had 3 draws in a row and is not the leader anymore... damn !

ha yeah gotta agree with AleXTC not all games are this entertaining. I'm gonna say damn on my side cos lyon drew after leading 3-1 and then 4-2. fucking hell... at the rate they're going at, they are sure not to qualify for the CL or the europa league.

Don't worry Jibe, just gotta win Champions Lge this year ;)

ahah, sure. and with Gourcuff on fire till the end of the season !
yeah, it's tough for Lyon... but Aulas is a bit out of control (again) against the referee.

mmm i could see us winning the champions league... we beat apoel, then basel in the quarters, beat marseille in semi and face a depleted barcelona when half their team ends up injured/suspended after a huge fight on the pitch with real players. can't wait to celebrate being european champions !!!!

also i've kinda learned not to pay too much attention to what aulas says. it used to be hard but now i live halfway across the world it's easy enough :)

well i see my joke prediction upthread was spot on...
anyways, this weekend has marseille going to paris for the french "clasico". which funnily enough hardly ever features two teams playing excellent football and at the top of the tables at the same time. it is often said that whichever of the two teams that is in the worst state usually ends up winning. if that is truly the case then i'd expect marseille to destroy psg, considering as how they are on an amazing pass of something like 8 defeats in their last 10 games. even though paris isn't doing that great either, as they are still head to head with pesky montpellier whom no one expected to still be all the way at the top this close to the finish line. when psg fired kombouaré to put ancelotti in his place, everyone expected magic or something. he ended up winning his first four or five games (never mind that a few of those victories came thanks to terrific individual performances) but lately his psg hasn't been that great. and doesn't seem to be playing very good football either, still relying far too much on nene, menez or pastore to do something great to save them.

as i said, montpellier are three points clear of psg (who play tonight) while playing an attractive brand of football. they are the mst prolific team in ligue 1 and feature the best scorer, olivier giroud. this is a great team built on clever buys (giroud was bought from a ligue 2 team, hilton was bought from marseille where he was on the bench all the time after having two great seasons where he was chosen as one of the best defenders in ligue 1) and great youth system (belhanda and stambouli come from there). in the two way race for first place between psg and montpellier, i'm decidedly rooting for montpellier.

meanwhile lille is in third place three points clear of lyon. every other week sees lyon fans give up on their chances for third place (and the final qualifying spot for the champion's league) and then lille loses and lyon wins so who knows. i'd say their hopes of stealing third pllace from lille are rather small since they'd need to win most of their remaining games, which seems like a hard task what with their uneven performances.

finally, in the bottom three we have two of the clubs who've spent the most time in ligue 1, sochaux and auxerre. sochaux being all the way down is very surprising after last year's 5th place but they apparentlt can't seem to get their shit together. meanwhile auxerre ended in 3rd place 2 seasons ago, their owner started this seasons claiming they were aiming for European qualification ths season and this is where they end up... (tbh tho, their team never had a chance for european spots but still i for one would be quite sad to see both those teams go down as some of my earliest european football memories involve auxerre playing against dortmund and i'd be listening to it on the radio at my grandparent's house)

what is the likeliness of montpellier keeping this team together for the cl run? 20%?

i still don't think i've watched them play but i keep hearing incredible things about giroud and belhanda

PSG do beat Marseille, 2-1, to go level on points with seven to play. Montpellier's game-in-hand is also against Marseille, and I think is this week.

Nice update Jibe!

and Marseille lose to Montpellier, 1-3. they are now on some extraordinary 12 games in a row without a victory. and to think that just a few months ago, back in december/january, they'd been on a roll, winning a lot of their games. their two best players have been playing injured for a while now apparently - Rémy has a thigh injury and André Ayew a shoulder one. their next game is against Lyon in the league cup final. this is marseill's last hope at salvaging their season as a victory would qualify them for the Europa league.

In other news, we now know who's going to play the finals of the French cup. Lyon beat Gazélec Ajaccio (who play in National, which is the third division: it goes ligue 1>ligue 2>National) on tuesday night in a very heated game. The corsican players were apparently quite intent on making a big impression on the opposing players. and yesterday saw Rennes playing against quevilly, another National side. and in typical fashion, rennes bottled it again, losing 2-1. they dominated the first half, scoring rapidly. then they kind of lost control of the game, prolly thinking about the final. and quevilly scored one and then a second one at the last second of extra time. so final will be lyon against quevilly.

lyon will have the possibility of winning the two cups which is somthing only one team has done before, psg in 98 iirc. the past three years have all seen one team win two titles (09 - Bordeaux win league cup & champiionship, 10- marseille win league cup & championship, 11- lille win french cup & championship) so hopefull lyon can continue that run :D this would also be a way to salvage their season. and would allow them to qualify for the europa league (thus breaking a long streak of qualifying for the champions league)

also sam as to your question about montpellier keeping their players... well the thing is french teams always end up losing their players to england/spain/italy. even when they qualify for the CL, even when they are the best team in france etc. i feel like there's a good group of players in montpellier wh enjoy playing with each other. but we all know how little that means when some team from england comes promising far more money etc. i feel like they might keep some of their players, hopefully giroud will stay, belhanda too. but ya, there's no way they'll keep all their players.

also forgot to add that the psg - om crowd was at their best for a few minutes. apparently they started chanting " a big mac for gignac" during the game which is awesome. gignac has hardly played this season with marseille and started the season by going to some place in italy to lose a lot of weight. he's basically always out of shape and is known to have a fondness for kebabs & pizzas etc.

Did the Marseille fans really have a banner telling their players that it was their responsibility to lose because they didn't want PSG to win the title?

yup. if i have the time i'll write something about the rivalry between psg and marseille but basically, the fans would rather they lose another match than to hinder psg's only remaining competitor for first place.

that rivalry deserves a book in itself, having been created out of thin air in the early 90's for purely commercial reasons (actually there are several books in FR on the subject)

ya totally agree with you on that. that rivalry really sprung out of thin air thanks to canal+ during the 90s who owned psg and wanted one game to really sell to ppl, so what better rivalry to create than paris vs marseille. and then there are things that made it even stronger like the 99 championship where paris is said to have let bordeaux beat them on the last day of the season so that marseille wouldnt win the title.

why is the coupe de france always so amazing with the cinderella stuff, is it really just the home advantage to the smaller side?

all cup competitions should be like this

love this little touch too:

Numbering

In Coupe de France matches, players are restricted to wearing the shirt numbers 1–18 regardless of the player's traditional number. The starters are given the numbers 1–11 with each player given a certain number based on his position. However, if a player wears a number between 1–11 domestically, he is allowed to wear that same number in Coupe de France matches unless he is among the substitutes at the start of the match, in which case the number is given to the player that is playing in his position.

i honestly have no idea why the coupe de france always has cinderella stories but its entertaining. i could hazard a guess and say that ligue 1 teams aren't that good and tend to consider smaller teams as easy wins. btw two years ago quevilly reached the semifinals of the coupe de france, where they were beaten by psg, so this is a competition that they seem to have gotten the hang of.

Nicolas Anelka, player-manager.

Should be good for a larf, I imagine.

i'm def expecting some great things to come out of this whole thing

Commiserations to Jibe after Lyon's 1-0 aet defeat to Marseille in the League Cup Final yesterday. Pretty terrible game tbh with Marseille being the slightly less terrible of the two teams.

ya i saw the result coming back from a night out. and apprently the game was truly horrible. oh well lyon still have the coupe de france final against quevilly. now that's a game they had better not lose !

Pastore just scored a beauty after a couple of slick 1-2's. PSG 1-0 up after 5 mins.

PSG going with the Roma trademarked no CF line-up.

Also Sochaux have a player called YaYa Banana on the field.

Terriblr flap from the PSG goalie. 1-1.

Sochaux with the worst offside trap outside of Wolfsburg that I've ever seen. If PSG don't get at least 4 today they'll be kicking themselves.

Well, there's 2.

And there's 3. Menez header.

dammit my good quality feed cut just after that menez goal
sochaux had a few lovely moves too like on that maiga shot on the post

lovely pass from pastore to launch tiéné for that menez goal btw

yeah, pastore is on it today.

Well they've got their 4. Menez.

Nene, not Menez. My mistake.

Nene brilliance. 5-1.

noooooo sochaux took yaya banana out of the game.
psg are killing it and this bodes well for the race for first place with montpellier

and a 6th in extra time, scored by armand. this allows psg to improve their goal difference. they are maybe just one goal behind montpellier now? well and 2 pts too.

Interesting piece on Quevilly in the Guardian today, explaining the relative health of the lower tiers in France. Uniquely, the comments are pretty good too.

Enjoyed that. I like the idea of players signing 'cos they assume they'll be a cup run with notable big team scalps.

great article indeed. that bobeto guy in the comments is quite interesting too. and i hv to say i agree with him. ligue 1 teams def don't do very well in europe (tho lyon really had a few yrs were they were thiiiiiis close to actually competing in the semis) hence the general feeling that ligue 1 is uninteresting (including to a lot of ppl in france) but i think one of the reasons i enjoy that league is that the gap between 1st & 20th is not as huge as it is in the epl, liga meaning that the race for 1st is tighter. i mean if you look, since 1994, excepting that fluke 7 yrs in a row Lyon run, off the top of my head the ligue 1 champions were marseille, lille, bordeaux twice, lyon 7 times, monaco twice (now in ligue 2), lens (now in ligue 2) psg once, auxerre once (soon to be in ligue 2), nantes 2x (now in ligue 2). thats 9 different champions in 17 yrs, 3 of which are now in the 2nd division, with a 3rd team well on its way to joining them ! and this is without counting all the upsets etc in cups as mentioned in that article.

I think the boom in paying attention to European football coming during the Lyon years still brings a mighty shadow. Also from a personal pov, buying two league winners (Gerv and Makh) who turned out to be useless, I'm not exactly in the mood to continue praising the leagues ability.

It most probably is more interesting and I won't be surprising if it evens out and maybe even catches up to crazy old Italy but I get my fill of underwhelming frenchiness being an Arsenal fan.

haha ya, but you won't catch me praising the leagues ability! then again at least you didn't pay crazy prices for those players iirc (chamakh came for free & gervinho can't have been that expensive right??) also, you might hv been expecting far too much out of those players?

chamakh came from a bordeaux team whose players, each and every one of them, have fallen to terrible levels since the title run. i should know, lyon bought gourcuff and he's done fuck all since coming apart from keeping company to mensah on the injured list. basically those players had a 6month time period where all of them were playing far beyond their usual level, thus winning the title. since then most hv come back to the normal lvl that is theirs or fallen to a worse lvl than should be theirs. and finally, if u were expecting chamakh to score tons of goals, joke's on you. his best season was that one in bordeaux and he scored 13 goals in 30 something matches, with basically a scoring rate somewhat similar to the one he had during his first season at arsenal?

honestly i cant remember how i felt about the makh when he came. i think i was just :( about eduardo leaving.

honestly i cant remember how i felt about the makh when he came.

Bendtner's been crocked for a while now? Not such a big deal w/ Chamakhatacck now is it...

― a hoy hoy, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 09:45 (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf chamakh did replace bendtner adequately. Like for like almost

Ha, so decent back-up option? HOW WRONG I WAS.

i think most people on here, who don't follow the french football that closely, liked the look of chamakh. i think i had him in my fantasy football team at the start of that season.

bit unfair to hold arsenal's dodgy deals up against the whole league tbf, most other clubs are still picking up quality for good value

well duh. but then you remember that THIS om team was the biggest european team this season and again...

oh yeah i'm not arguing the teams are much cop, just individual players

was tempted the other week (after the "will anyone else outside top 5 win the prem like they do elsewhere" thread iirc) to start a where would teams place in other leagues mudslinging session

like would everton win ligue 1, would fulham challenge, could newcastle win the bundesliga, would valencia/bilbao win the prem etc, and how low can you go with it

The success of those academies is one of the reasons that the gulf in quality between top clubs and lower league is not as big as the gulf in wages and helps explain why many lower-league clubs have done well in the French Cup in recent times, most notably when Calais, from the fourth tier, were runners-up in 2000.

i guess this is going to be the english model now that eppp will destroy lower league academies; perhaps not necessarily doom & gloom after all

haha!

Mallet has said that Quevilly are unlikely to take up any Europa League place as the club is not ready for it and "it would be taking the piss a little" to take part ahead of pro clubs.

nice piece on Younes Belhanda, seems like a nice dude
http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/story/_/id/7853573/the-rise-montpellier-midfield-star-younes-belhanda-james-horncastle

Cool article. Didn't realize that 7 of their starting eleven have come through the academy. Even cooler.

outrageous assist by hazard just now

Oh good work Lille, turning over PSG. When do/did Montpellier play?

On Tuesday vs Evian. Top of the table with four games to go:

Montpellier  34  72  +30
PSG          34  67  +27
Lille        34  65  +27

Lille are probably too far behind to do it, realistically; I guess that ought to mean the game is up for PSG too, but it doesn't work like that.

Dalglish was scouting the Montpellier game on Friday night. Didn't realise they had any British players.

Were PSG top when they replaced the manager?

Pretty sure Louis Philippe - El Records Impresario - New Music! said so on Football Weekly last week.

watching my first montpellier match. zidane is thee shaking hands

my god zidane is the coolest person ever. he just looks so great.

Wheels are coming off for Montpellier, maybe - Evian have come from behind to lead 2-1 with ten mins left.

Equaliser! Very strange goal, it was like slow motion. Offside too.

Penalty Montpellier!

Still waiting btw - two brawls & two red cards since the penalty was given

We're 7 mins into the 3 mins' injury time

Another red card

such drama

And a fourth

oh man

keeper saves, fucking hell

never seen penalty pressure like it, what a shame

weird, felt so anticlimatic.

kind of amazed Evian didn't nick it, it was a crazy last ten eighteen minutes

• Montpellier equalised on 82 mins - Giroud stabbed it through to Camara, who was slightly offside. He squared back to Giroud who poked home from 3 yards. It was the type of goal where everyone looks to the linesman before celebrating.
• then Montpellier press hard for the winner, looking quite potent but leaving themselves wide open two or three times
• on 91 mins Evian score but it's wrongly ruled out for offside; high cross on the break from deep, the forward stretches out a toe and gets an impossible nick, wrongfooting the goalie and it trundles six inches over the line before he manages to scoop it out
• on 93 mins and 10 seconds Montpellier break into the box, nudges past the last man and goes over the leg. Clear penalty I thought. Camara steps up.
• 93-95 mins - an Evian player encroaches then everyone else brawls across the box, some slapping and a red card each. Ref resets everyone.
• 95-97 mins - a second brawl, subs and coaches on the field now, another red card each. Only poor Camara is immobile, breathing hard.
• 98 mins - he hits a softish penalty to the keeper's right, he guesses correctly and saves.

Whoa.

whoaaaa... i took a long weekend holiday and missed all the fun. v glad to see lyon managed to overcome mighty quevilly, quite happy to see psg did not beat lille (they'll have plenty more chances to win the league, whereas montpellier has this one time only i guess). also last night's game sounds crazy. montpellier played their worst game of the season againt evian (lost 4-2) and players were saying they were pumped up to "avenge" that defeat.

I was looking up the historical record earlier - I hadn't realised quite how insignificant Montpellier are. One third-place finish in 1988, and that's it.

I assumed they'd won the league a couple of times. Would make it even sweeter if thry held on.

Lille are now 2nd btw, five behind with two games left. PSG playing their extra game just now.

PSG wrap up the points with a late second, now three behind with two to play.

They looked very assured in fairness, much more so than Montpellier last night unfortunately.

Sunday 6th
Valenciennes - PSG

Monday 7th
Lille - Caen
Rennes - Montpellier

Sunday 13th
Montpellier - Lille
PSG - Rennes

Sunday 20th
Auxerre - Montpellier
Lille - Nancy
Lorient - PSG

Three games left, I miscounted. Table as follows:

Montpellier    73  +30
PSG            70  +29
Lille          68  +28

Just hope Lille fall apart when they play Montpellier - that looks like a doozy of a match.

I think Lille can still win this y'know

Some details I'd missed, courtesy of Football Weekly:

• it was some other guy took the first penalty. The reason he didn't step up in injury time is that the manager has introduced a rotation policy whereby he and Giroud alternate spot kicks. But Giroud bottled it and Camara stepped up instead.
• what prompted the first brawl was Montpellier playmaker Ben Hamda(?) first checking Camara was cool with this arrangement, then walking straight into a punch-up with the Evian players.
• he was of course sent off, and is presumably suspended for at least part of le crunch, as they may or may not be calling the run-in. The denouement maybe. I mean FFS, how self-indulgent is that?
• not as self-indulgent as slagging off Giroud in the press the morning after, that's how, and of course that's what Ben Hamda did next.

Ben Hamda Belhanda

"I'd like to apologise to my team-mates for the buzz that my comments caused," Belhanda said. "It was frustration that made me talk and I shouldn't have spoken to the press."

He added: "I'd particularly like to apologise to Souley and Olivier. I'll be with the squad 100 percent until the end, even if I can't express myself on the pitch."

Belhanda scored the first penalty, too.

thanks

Valenciennes-PSG: PSG doing their best to fuck things up, going two-down within twelve minutes. There was so much attacking by Valenciennes in those first twelve minutes, it was quite unreal - I couldn't believe it when I looked at the clock and so little time had elapsed. Currently 2-1, PSG playing alright now.

2-2, really nice overlapping goal by maxwell. PSG should win this now, they're a pretty classy-looking outfit moving forward and they've got a whole half-and-a-bit to find the winner.

3-2 to PSG, this is slick but rather disheartening

Montpellier hold their nerve to beat Rennes 2-0. Lille won earlier too. Those two play at the weekend in the biggest game left in Europe this season.

The biggest game left in Europe this season is on just now. 0-0 midway through the first half. It's good stuff so far, Montpellier having slightly the better of it but Lille looking up for it too.

Still 0-0 at halftime. Montpellier are faster, stronger and more direct, but a couple of times they've had excellent positions only to mess up with inexplicable final balls. They've missed at least one sitter, but Lille have had a couple of chances too.

Also 0-0 in PSG - Rennes, which is what we want.

Err that's not what I want!

You're in luck, Nene scores 1-0

Montpellier winner in 4th minute of injury time!

It was almost exactly like Torres v Barca, except Giroud squared it. He did so well. Lille were pushing up, they needed a winner themselves to keep their title.

I really enjoyed that, cracking game. Tense as anything - you can't beat high-stakes footy basically.

Montpellier now need a draw away to Auxerre to win the title. If they lose and PSG win at Lorient, PSG will be champions.

Auxerre got relegated tonight so I think Montpellier can pop the champagne tonight

ILF lived up to its name so much today.

really glad for montpellier i have to say. i feel like everyone except psg fans is rooting for montpellier to win it. psg will win the league in the years to come and part of me feels they didn't deserve to finish at the top after kicking out kombouaré (a somewhat legendary psg player) in december even though he had brought psg to 1st spot.

yeah well people always love an underdog.
Anyway, it's true that for most of the season PSG did not impress as a team, mostly snatching points thanks to solo raids from its "star" players (ironic that their best player this season by far, Nene, was a relic of teh old regime).
However, for the last month or so, Ancelotti seems to have made the team gel. Shame about the title this year, but as Jibé said, it's pretty clear that PSG will dominate the league for the years to come. The Pastore-Menez-Nene trio is only finally starting to find their marks, so I'm really looking forward to see them next year (assuming they all stay).

yup montpellier as underdog + the fact that it's paris and with it the old paris/province divide + the qatari money + firing kombouaré makes it hard for lots of ppl to root for them. but they def seem to be gelling - correct me if i'm wrong but right now they've started playing without a true forward (meaning no gameiro/hoarau on the field at the start) with ménez and nene just going wherever they want with pastore right behind them? i'd be curious to see who they get during the summer. especially since there's been the usual amount of crazy talk (for ex, negotiations with real madrid for a kaka+higuain package comes to mind). and yeah, nene is having a great season, joint top scorer with giroud and in the top 5 passers, or something like that? i'd say only hazard is havng a better season than him this year?

this is based on having seen the game against sochaux and from looking at the team sheet before the game yesterday, not from any extensive viewing. i really hope they do well in the champions league next year.

yes, it seems that the team started clicking once Ancelotti made them play w/o a CF with those three mostly playing in free positions. Yes, I'm also very curious to see who they'll buy this summer since I feel they should mainly try to leave the current squad develop as a team. Not sure either Kaka or Higuain would bring that much, although they do need a bigger bench since they do't really have any subs for Pastore/Menez/Nene.

After Chelsea and West Ham yesterday Montpellier really better win this fucking thing. Just sayin'.

I know. Their game is enough about strength & movement that they should be fine, but they came damn close to losing to Evian a couple of weeks back, so.

You've got to love the optimism of the French authorities, scheduling the Ligue 1 climax for this weekend.

haha, yes. And the Coppa Italia Final is tonight as well.

Montpellier are doing enough, 1-1 at halftime (they need a point) while PSG are losing 1-0 at Lorient (they need a win while Montpellier lose).

Meanwhile Lille are 4-1 up against Nancy - it doesn't matter now, but if they and not Montpellier had got the injury-time goal last week it'd be Lille's title right now (that's not as 'if my auntie had balls' as it sounds btw, it could easily have happened).

Oh, and PSG fans threw flares onto the pitch after they'd gone behind, holding up play for five minutes. I don't know what that's about as I didn't see it, but I'm sure the players will be reinforced by that show of support.

Hold up at Auxerre now to clear debris that had been thrown on, I had assumed to allow the two games to get back in sync, but the ref has hauled the players off the field now. This is a bit of a shambles.

I'm assuming this is a coördinated protest by Auxerre ultras about their relegation, some fine extended radio gaga clapping displays going on.

PSG hit the post. There's a goal coming.

PSG do score, this is still up for grabs.

The Montpellier game restarts, now about ten minutes behind. They'll play the last ten minutes either as a celebration or in a frantic Man City need-to-score style.

PSG score and lead 2-1. An Auxerre goal now and it's PSG's title.

Auxerre doing all the attacking, this is terrifying

Anthony Le Tallec close for Auxerre with the sort of piledriver we became so accustomed to at Anfield.

Jeez, a flare right into the Montpellier defence there - this might yet be a win by default.

PSG game needlessly descending into an injury-time brawl.

PSG have won, no idea what's going to happen in the Montpellier game.

Restarting again now in the Montpellier game, about thirteen minutes left. It's 1-1, which'd give Montpellier the title, but a goal for Auxerre and it's PSG's.

This is a desperate way to end though.

Oh, I don't know if they are restarting, some kind of consultations going on right now. There's a riot police cordon a yard from the goal line at one end.

They're clearing the stand at that end now so they can play the last thirteen minutes 1/4 closed doors. Never seen this before.

Yes! Utaka gives Montpellier the lead!

There's now fifteen minutes to go apparently.

wuh my stream just went to an ad.

I lost everything too but firstrow #11 has just come back

Hurrah! Jeez though, what a way to win a title.

CONGRATS MONTPELLIER.

i've watched hardly any ligue 1 this season - have montpellier been good in a way that means everyone's going to buy all of their players over the summer, or is it more like if swansea had won the premier league this year?

They've got maybe two or three excellent players who'll be snapped up - Giroud, Belhanda, Camara maybe. The rest are very competent, strong players and excellent teamwork. I'd say it's probably as if Newcastle had won the EPL this year.

if swansea won the league, all their good players would be bought. but for montpelier i think the biggest stars have been Giroud, Belhanda, and Yanga-Mbiwa, they seem the ones most likely to be bought by a bigger club.
xp

In terms of history, it's probably something akin to Southampton winning the league next year.

Thierry Roland died last night. To most of you that name means absolutely nothing but to any French fotball fan he's extremely famous. He was a football commentator, who'd been commenting for about 50 years, including 13 world cups and 9 euros, countless matches from ligue 1 to European cups, French national team matches etc. His duo with Jean-Michel Larqué as a commentating team was really famous, his laugh even more so (he seriously had one of the weirdest and entertaining laughs i've ever heard). He was also susceptible to a few racist comments at times tbh but still he was somewhat of a lovable old grouch. This guy really was as much a celebrity as most football players.

RIP Thierry Roland.

yeah he was very fun (on the other hand I hate larqué... it was so awful to have to listen to him during the game yesterday !).

i haven't heard larqué comment a game for maybe 2-3 years but general consensus does seem to be that he's getting even more annoying as he ages. is he really that terrible now? and it's true that out of the two roland seemed the nicest&most fun. though ya, capable of some very misplaced statements.