That was insane! I was watching the wrap-around coverage on Sopcast and the drama was incredible. Obviously, Lyon took care of the title scoring twice early on, but the battles for Champions League and UEFA Cup spots and avoiding the drop were incredible. And there were 43 goals in the 10 games! And I thought Ligue 1 was one of the lowest-scoring leagues out there. That comes out to a goal every two minutes. Wow.
The Marseille and the Nancy matches must have been really exciting..PSG probably had the most dramatic finish considering the game was tied and Diane scored his second goal to give his club the victory. Imagine if the PSG game would have finish with a draw and Lens got relegated because of that disallowed goal.
Was obvious from early on that Lyon weren't going to slip up, but the drama at the other end was brilliant! Always thought Lens were the most likely to go down, but seeing Eric Carrière interviewed at the end almost in tears, really felt for him!
He played his heart out for Lens, but unfortunately his team had no chemistry. They really went down hill after Juisse left this squad last season.
Ok so PSG(Cup winner), Nancy(4th), and St. Etienne(5th) the UEFA Cup and Rennes(6th) in the Intertoto.
That is the ridiculous. Lens failed because of leadership plain and simply. Everyone but Leclercq should go, Gervais especially because he created this entire mess.
I feel sorry for Nancy. They were in the top 3 all season, only to fall off the podium at the last minute. But I much rather they play uefa where they could win some matches and boost their coefficient than come up in the third qualifying CL round against a team like Barca, Juve, Arsenal or Liverpool.
French football is dead and buried! stick a fork in it! Lens, France's most popular club is gone for good....take your Toulouse crap and shove it Ligue 1!
hey, it's no joke! once on vacation in finistere i saw a café painted sky blue and white with the RCL motto "droit au but" in letters 3 feet high... they have fan clubs EVERYWHERE!
Even though Lens are a popular team they really dont spend a lot of money. They arent a "low budget team" by French standards but the ratio of fan support to budget doesnt seem proportionate. A team that popular should have a higher budget than they do. Maybe its because its a small town is the reason. I bet Toulouse's budget is similar to theirs and we all know Toulouse's support compared to Lens's support.
Last season Lens doubled Toulouse's in terms of budget and is usually in the top four to six. I imagine figures would be similar for this season. http://www.jeuxvideo.fr/forum/hors-sujet/sport/budgets-2006-2007-de-ligue-1-id144148-page1.html OL 110 Marseille 75 Paris 70 Lens 60 Bordeaux 55 Monaco 50 Nantes 50 Saint-Etienne 42,5 Sochaux 40 rennes 38 Lille 36 Toulouse 34 Auxerre 31,5 Nice 27 Le Mans 22,5 Troyes 22,5 Valenciennes 22,5 Nancy 22 Sedan 22 Lorient 20,5
Those budgets aren't accurate. I saw a site that said Lens's budget was 45 mil this year and will be reduced to 25 mil next year in Ligue 2 says their president.
Lens' budget this year was just over 67 million so whatever site you saw was inaccurate (http://www.footmercato.net/le-rc-lens-peut-il-se-remettre-d_article20802.html). The figures quoted above were from France Football so I'm not sure why they'd be wildly inaccurate. And this year's budget is directly from a Lens employee. Next year's budget has to come down. Just in the mandated salary cuts for descending that takes a big chunk. We got relegated, of course the budget is going to be significantly different but to say we didn't spend much when we were consistently in the top 6 spenders just behind the likes of OM, PSG, OL is just silly.