New to French Football

[salvador]

i don't know anything about this league and was curious, do the teams have a large fan following and is it a very competitive league?

do paris, marsellies, lyon, or alsace have a team? cuz i have family origins in those places. (sorry bout their spellings not too good)

[Papa Bouba Diop]

I'd say our league is pretty competitive, last 11 years saw something like 8 different champions.

Some pics

Lyon

http://www.euro-goal.info/euro4/europe/images/stadiums/gerland.jpg

Paris (PSG)

http://earth.sunwing.co.jp/MatchOfTheDay/stadium/s-ParcDesPrinces.jpg

[Papa Bouba Diop]

Alsace has Strasbourg in the 1st division.

http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadium_pictures/europe/france/alsace/strasbourg.jpg

[Papa Bouba Diop]

Marseille

http://romanianultras.tifonet.it/images/om1.jpg

likes waisting bandwidth/

[fishbiproduct]

Speaking of Marseille, I just HAVE to paste a
post from FCBasel1893 in this fantastic thread:

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74235&perpage=15&pagenumber=23

Here it is:


Video showing atmosphere in the Velodrome, Marseille:

http://omediatheque2.free.fr/aux_armes.avi

the lines which the two tribunes (with the two big ultra groups Commando Ultra '84 and South Winners on the south tribune, and Yankee Nord, MTP, Fanatics and Dodgers on the north tribune) shout at each other are:

Aux armes - Aux armes.
Aux armes - Aux armes.
Nous sommes les Marseillais - Nous sommes les Marseillais
Et nous allons gagner - Et nous allons gagner
Allez l'OM - Allez l'OM
Allez l'Om - Allez l'OM


And here's another video from Marseille, but the camera angle is not so good (the tifo can't really be recognized):

http://omediatheque.free.fr/videos/...ux-sept2002.avi

[fishbiproduct]

Er...The second link in the post I pasted
above isn't valid, sorry. Here's it is,corrected:

http://omediatheque.free.fr/videos/tribunes/om-bordeaux-sept2002.avi

[SportBoy333]

Originally posted by salvador
i don't know anything about this league and was curious, do the teams have a large fan following



The teams with the largest and best fan followings are: Marseille, PSG, Lyon, Lens, Nantes, Bordeaux and St. Etienne. The rest of the clubs have either average or poor fan support.

[salvador]

i was able to watch a champions league lyon game and noticed they have a great atmosphere in the stadium.

[salvador]

would u say it is the most popular sport in france?

[magic38]

Originally posted by salvador
would u say it is the most popular sport in france?
definitely

[salvador]

which city do u think is most intimately involved with their team?

and thanks for all the info guys

[Papa Bouba Diop]

Originally posted by salvador
which city do u think is most intimately involved with their team?

and thanks for all the info guys

Marseille have most passionate fans.

Lens has the best fans per capita i.e. the population of Lens is 40,000, and they average about 35,000 per game.

Paris has similar fans than Marseille, but it's 10 times more populated than Marseille.

Edit: St-Etienne as well have awesome fans, they're in the second division so people tend to forget about them, the thing I love most about them is that their fans don't chant that stupid song "aux armes... aux armes... (nous sommes les encules)

[salvador]

i was looking at the standings and saw that marseilles was in 6th place, is this a bad showing this season for them, and if so is there a reason they aren't at the very top of their league?

[SportBoy333]

Well the finished 3rd last year so 6th place so far is clearly a disapointment. They should be going forward not backwards. Missing the Champions League will be a big blow. They are just as talented if not more so than the 5 teams ahead of them they really should be doing better.

[jamison]

Yeah, but they are in 6th because of their crap goalkeeper!

(just kidding).

[salvador]

speaking of who sux, what part of the marseilles team would u say in exceptionally better than most or at least talented
and what aspects of the team do u think need to be better and may cause them to not be gaining the points they should be?

[gary_rb]

the part they need to improve is their capacity to develop the game
that's why they recruited laurent battles
about "the points they should be gaining", i don't think they deserve better than a 6th place. actually, without drogba who always manages to score incredible goals, they would be way deeper in the ladder.