What a remarkable season for Olympique Lyon. Dead last in early December after 14 games played with a 1-4-9 record: 19 games later, they are tied with Lens at 50 points (going 14-1-4 in that stretch) for the final European spot with one match to go. (But Lens win the GD tiebreaker.) And they play PSG on 25th May in the Coupe de France finale. Who’d have predicted this in early December? Amazing.
I can comment on this now that I've secured tickets for the final. Lyon had a couple of very bad managers but went for a local guy who worked a while for Red Star. Pierre Sage was well thought of all around and fit the bill on staying as manager in the long run and it proved to be a right decision. We are still massive favorites to win this final but kudos for Sage for turning things around: 16 pts halfway through the season, 34 pts in the 2nd half of the season!
Lille and Brest play for 3rd/4th with third getting an automatic spot into the Champions league . They have the same points and separated by 2 in GD with Lille having the advantage.
Fantastic finish to Ligue 1. Most exciting of all the Euro leagues this weekend: 1) Brest in the CL thanks to a crushing equalizer in Lille by Nice. 2) Lyon complete the miracle comeback season to qualify for Europe thanks to another crushing equalizer, in Lens by Montpellier. 3) Lorient…oh so close to overcoming their huge goal differential vis a vis Metz to stay alive for a relegation playoff chance. * * OK, I watched the whiparound coverage in USA on BeIN Sports 6. English announcers, so maybe the same as what aired in the UK, dunno. Very entertaining, but the whole time they kept saying that Lorient making up 7 goals on Metz would leapfrog them to 16th and a playoff survival chance. Yet it was easy to see that Metz would win the tiebreak (road goals in HTH in this case), so Lorient did need another. Which they clearly knew as they kept pressing Clermont till the very end up 5-0, knowing PSG beat Metz 2-0.. The announcers apologized soon after all the matches were over, clarifying that instead, Metz qualified for the playoff after all. ==> These guys and their producers had ample time to prepare, jot down all the scenarios, which teams won HTH tiebreakers. No excuses: awful broadcasting for that aspect of an otherwise hugely fun TV viewing.
Lorient getting relegated (crazy circumstances right!) will be a blow to the Foley 'group'. Can imagine we'll be asked to help where possible with either youngster loans, or players bought by us to immediately loan to them. Not that I know much about the standard of Ligue 2 to comment on what kind of players would be useful for them.
Lorient is basically a Ligue 2 club anyway. Possibly the most yo-yo club in the country between the top 2 divisions.
That's pretty harsh mate. If you'd ask me last night who should have stayed up I probably would have told you Lorient as more goals scored but the rules do state that it's first general goal difference then H2H opposition with away goals counting (Metz having won at Lorient 3-2 being the clincher as Lorient beat them at home 2-1). Don't think Lorient can be too buggered by the whole thing though as the place has been gloomy all season (manager Régis Le Bris started brighthly but he's been really shit in terms of team management and media communication) and that the odds of them staying up were very, very slim (actually surprised we won at Metz but the Lorrains really are awful). Oh well, roll on Saturday for the Coupe de France final.
Yeah but you’re not the one being paid to do the TV commentary. I know the tiebreak rules differ across the leagues but they are readily attainable via Google searches. And there were not all that many HTH comparisons of possible import to look up before those final round Ligue 1 matches. And the announcers of that “multiplex” broadcast (their term) started chatting up the not-so-hugely-improbable chance of Lorient catching Metz very early in the broadcast. Yet they hadn’t done adequate pre-game research on it. Well anyway, I see Metz suffered a late goal by St. Etienne in Leg 1 of their playoff, so maybe they’ll go down same as Lorient…we’ll see.
I doubt you'd find the answer in an 2-second Google search. Had to know your way around the lfp (French league) website pretty well to look up such a technical case in point. Yeah, Sainté got the 1st leg advantage. Pretty much the whole of France wants them to go up (even Lyon).
I can see that. Saint-Etienne have a rich history winning a bunch of Ligue 1 titles. More interesting than Metz. (I saw a French crime drama series last year where a big football match played a part in the plot: the writers/producers chose PSG vs St-Etienne!) Plus relegated Clermont should be replaced with someone in that general region.
Saint-Étienne! Will this be the last Ligue 1 broadcast on beIN Sports USA? We shall see soon, as the league negotiates the new USA market TV contract with someone (perhaps with more than one.)
There actually isn't any broadcaster for next season so the clubs may just stop getting cash from the league from July onwards! Saint-Etienne going up is good news for French football and it's nice to have their derby with Lyon back.
Interesting reports that’s 8 clubs could potentially face bankruptcy if no TV deal is agreed. Auxerre Lens Nantes Stade Reims Montpellier Le Havre Angers Brest Mental really, especially for Brest given they’ve just qualified for the Champions League for the first time. I suppose this is all a consequence of it being a one horse race every season. Who’d have thought people want to watch a competitive league?
I doubt many clubs could survive without TV money. Wouldn't be surprised if even Prem ones struggled if the cash stopped coming in. CL money will only get you so far. The story is all about greed of course. Ligue 1 has had a long-standing relationship with Canal Plus but that went to hell when the qataris came into town straight after buying PSG. Relations have been tense ever since and never improved. The league somehow found naive investors to struck very lucrative deals (Mediapro, Amazon) but now everybody knows the league is worth 400M€ tops (which is half what the clubs have been getting up until now) so does the league do? I promises to start its own channel charging viewers 30€/month. 30€/month. For French football. **** right off! One thing's for certain, if the league doesn't find a solution soon, clubs are going to go bust. This isn't England or Spain, clubs are denied promotion if their finances aren't good enough in this country. Ironically, BeIn bought Ligue 2 rights for the next 5 years for 40M€/season meaning that 2nd tier clubs have more money than top draw ones! Madness.
Have BeIN not been in negotiations for Ligue 1? Seems odd they’d only purchase the rights for Ligue 2.
