Ligue 1 Preview - Who won the league?

Ligue 1 Preview - Who won the league?

Poor Montpellier! Seems strange saying that about the reigning French champions however it's certainly justified. Just incase anyone is unaware, Paris St Germain didn't actually win the league last season and they arent actually the only team in France just now. The French champions - Montpellier, not PSG - have continued as they left off last season after claiming their first Ligue 1 crown by quietly going about their business in the media slipstream of the capital team's juggernaut. Manager Rene Girard deserves enormous credit for leading his team to glory, in the end finishing 3 points ahead of PSG's oil-powered Qatari billions. Since then PSG have obviously strengthened immeasurably with the signings of Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic from AC Milan and the tireless Argentinian Ezequiel Lavezzi from Napoli. 

Ibrahimovic & Thiago Silva joined from AC Milan

Last seasons Ligue 2 champions, Bastia are joined in Ligue 1 by Troyes and Reims who finished second and third respectively. It will be interesting to see how Reims in particular cope in the top league after a 33 year absence which included liquidation - a far cry from the Reims of old who played a major part in developing French football's first golden generation of players in the 1950's including the prolific striker, Just Fontaine.


This season sees PSG and Montpellier qualifying for the Champions League group stages with Lille dropping into the play off round as a result of finishing 3rd in Ligue 1. Lyon and Marseille qualify for the Europa League group stage and third qualifying round as a result of winning the Coupe de France and the Coupe de la Ligue respectively. As Lyon also finished 4th, their Europa League spot goes to the team who finished 5th l4ast season, Bordeaux, who enter at the Play Off stage. Marseille will be joining them in the draw as they polished off Turkish SuperLiga side Eskisehirspor 3-0 at Stade Velodrome last night after gaining a crucial 1-1 draw in Turkey last week.


Today seen the announcement of the first French national squad since Euro 2012 and Didier Deschamps subsequent appointment as Les Blues boss. Details of the full squad can be found here : http://frenchfootballweekly.com/2012/08/09/deschamps-rings-the-changes/

Deschamps - Les Bleus new coach

Notable absentees include Jeremy Menez, Samir Nasri, Hatem Ben Arfa and Yann M'Vila. Menez and Nasri are serving official two match bans for their conduct at Euro 2012 with Deschamps giving the strongest hint today that Ben Arfa and M'Vila will be undertaking a similar punishment.
The squad as a whole is pretty strong, especially in defence and central midfield. Players such as Yanga-Mbiwa, Raphael Varane of Real Madrid, Lille captain Rio Mavuba and 27 year old Marseille midfielder Mathieu Valbuena deserve their place in this fairly youthful squad as a result of their form last season.


Montpellier Herault SC


This time last year no-one gave Montpellier a hope of winning Ligue 1. On a miniscule budget its nothing short of a miracle that they were able to put themselves in a position to not only challenge in the first place, but to actually keep that going and cross the finishing line in first place. It was a fantastic achievement for the club, and their crack at this seasons Champion's League is well deserved.

Similar to Lille last season, the expected vultures have been circling around the Stade de la Mosson but so far only Olivier Giroud has left to join Arsenal for a reported £12m. 
If Montpellier can hang onto last seasons other vital title winning cogs then they could well imitate Lille even further and consolidate themselves as a top Ligue 1 club. Players such as Younes Belhanda - a fantastically pacy attacking midfielder who looks to be finally realising his undoubted potential - the towering 23 year old centre half, Mapou Yanga-Mbwia and full back Hendi Bedimo who, prior to joining the Montpellier revolution had been something of a journeyman Ligue 2 fullback, were crucial to their success last season and they will look to keep most, if not all of them. Some well placed signings such as Anthony Mounier, who has joined from Nice will help them achieve this seasons ambitions.

Paris Saint German

Perennial under achievers, the countries biggest club are on the up after the high profile takeover by Qatari Sports Investments. They wasted no time in buying up some of the best domestic talent available in last years summer window such as Jeremy Menez, Blaise Matuidi and Kevin Gameiro. This was followed up by the marquee signing of Javier Pastore from Palermo and further supplemented in the winter window first by the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti as coach and then the capture of experienced Brazilian trio Alex (Chelsea), Thiago Motta (Inter Milan) and Maxwell (Barcelona).

This summer, as mentioned above they have taken things to a whole new level with the signings from Serie A of Thiago Silva, Ibrahimovic and Lavezzi. Ibrahimovic in particular represents a sign of intent as the most high profile player to join a Ligue 1 club in many years. As usual, there are murmurs of discontent from outsiders regarding PSG's ability to meet the criteria for Uefa president Michel Platini's Financial Fair Play regulations, however it should be noted that PSG finished runners up to Montpellier last season and are not guaranteed to take the crown back to Paris this season for the first time since 1994 and indeed only the third time in their history.


Rudi Garcia

Lille won their first Ligue 1 title in 2011 and performed admirably last season to finish the season in 3rd position. Their star player has obviously been Eden Hazard - now of Chelsea - however much credit has to go the teams manager, Rudi Garcia. A fairly unspectacular playing career started at Lille in 1982 and finished at Corbeil-Essonnes at the age of 34. A brief spell as assistant manager at St Etienne led to taking over the hot seat in 2001. From there he spent 5 seasons at Ligue 2 club, Dijon and a solitary season at Le Mans before the relatively surprising appointment at Lille in 2008, taking over from Claude Puel. 




Lille Coach Rudi Garcia

At LOSC, Garcia has played a crucial role in developing a number of young talents who have since moved onto pastures new. Players such as Michel Bastos, Yohan Cabaye, Moussa Sow, Gervinho and most famously, Eden Hazard all worked under Garcia's Lille regime. His greatest talent for me, lies in not only developing these players but understanding where Lille stand in the grand scheme of things and ensuring a conveyor belt of talent to maintain momentum and stability. Last season's departure of Cabaye(Newcastle), Sow (Fenerbahce) and Gervinho (Arsenal) was mitigated by the capture of Benoit Pedretti, Joe Cole (loan), Nolan Roux and Dimitri Payet respectively. 
This season, the loss of Hazard has been somewhat cushioned - although not entirely, as any club in the world would feel the loss of such a prodigious talent - by the very astute captures of Marvin Martin from Sochaux and Salomon Kalou on a free transfer from Chelsea. It remains to be seen whether Garcia's Lille can fully recover from the blow of losing Hazard but with a brand new stadium and money in the bank, they have given themselves a fantastic platform to do just that.

Jeunes Talents



Arsenals Francis Coquelin

French football has historically been a ripe market for major European clubs to cherry pick the best talents that the illustrious Clairefontaine acamedy can produce and the current era is no different. In fact, you could argue that players are going abroad far earlier. Zinedine Zidane was 24 years old when he first left French shores swapping Bordeaux for Juventus. He already had over 200 domestic appearances under his belt at that point. A player of that quality would be lucky to stay in France past his teenage years these days. Players such as Paul Pogba, Raphael Varane and Francis Coquelin, to name three, all left France at barely 18 years old to join major European clubs, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Arsenal respectively.

The tide may be turning though, clubs such as Lyon are looking to their academies again due to the financial constraints of the global economic downturn. Players such as Alexandre Lacazette and Clement Grenier (both 21) are the future and this is heartening to see. Of the 18 Ligue 1 clubs, only PSG have a squad with an average age of 27 or older. Rennes are the youngest squad in the league with an average age of 23.5. When you compare this to the Eredivise however (oldest - Roda JC 25.6, youngest - AZ 22.1), Ligue 1 is still a fairly old league. Financial difficulties have bitten a lot harder in the Eredivise and with less TV revenue this is to be expected.

Raphael Varane

I mentioned Raphael Varane earlier in the blog and I feel he along with PSG's Mahamadou Sakho will have a huge role to play should France want to re-emerge as an international super power. If you look to the past, France - and indeed most successful international teams - have been built on a base which includes world class central defenders. From Roger Marche to Marius Tresor through to more recent players such as Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly and Lillian Thuram. When you compare these players to the French central defence at Euro 2012 - Adil Rami and Philip Mexes - it's clear to see that this is an area that could be improved upon. Provided both Varane and Sakho get game time at their clubs (something which could be in doubt) you would hope that both are in with a great shout of booking a starting berth for the World Cup in 2014.

This season, Ligue 1 will be shown live in the UK for the first time thanks to ESPN. It will be an incredibly entertaining league as always, and all eyes will be on PSG as they embark on what is being billed as a procession to the title. Do not discount Lille or indeed Montpellier either, or who knows, maybe we will have another surprise package for the third year on the trot.