22 avril 2022
It is an increasingly oppressive fact as the weeks go by: each passing match and each subsequent disappointment brings the Girondins closer to the precipice and this second industrial accident that the most pessimistic predicted from the summer of 2021 at the time of the takeover of the club, no one has forgotten it. After the economic clash of last year could indeed arrive the sporting clash, in the form of a relegation, the first sanctioned by the ground for 60 years. Certainly, when there is life, there is hope. It was therefore “worth it” to try to keep the current biggest patient in French football afloat and in the elite. This is the challenge that Gérard Lopez and his team will have tried to take up, with, over the course of a course which turned out to be immediately strewn with pitfalls or unforeseen events, decisions taken in an emergency to try to provoke an electroshock, methods whose form as much as substance will certainly not have won all the votes (especially those which targeted players who are managers of the team… who also happened to be the highest salaries, for the result that we see today in the field), but which are not new (they were the same at LOSC in particular) and which the club’s financial backers as much as the ad hoc agent named on the file will have judged viable at the time.
All that for this ?
The late President Claude Bez, whose legendary loyalty and frankness were known as much as the love of his club, but whose financial methods were not absolutely exemplary either – it is an understatement to write it – , used to respond to criticism, during the golden age of the Girondins: “I win, therefore I am right”. Thirty years have passed, the method of financing football clubs has changed (we did not say that it was better than before…), and we will be careful not to reverse this aphorism in the case present and to apply it to the men of the moment: “I lose, therefore I am wrong”. It would be to forget a little quickly that Gérard Lopez did not inherit a gift but a field of ruins, devastated by fundraisers who had no culture of European football or knowledge of a club that they did not know. ‘envisioned that as the ideal showcase for derivative products across the Atlantic, the sporting aspect and the requirement of competition ultimately remaining very secondary, the sale of Pablo or the non-recruitment of Cyprien – however desired by Jean-Louis Gasset – to whom we will prefer the loan of the transparent Seri to the winter transfer window of last year proved it, for example. Fundraisers who bought the FCGB institution as one buys a laundry or a car garage and who moreover made the mistake of surrounding themselves with unscrupulous opportunists who will have served themselves copiously during their brief stay. It was no longer a question then for Lopez only of rebuilding, in a very short time, a competitive team (and when one recruits in an emergency, one rarely makes the right choices, which are never first choices, by force) , but to try to restore a semblance of morality or rigor in a historic club that has become a drunken boat, a sick baby passed on in due time by an owner who had felt the tide turn, tired it is true of having to mop up every year a cumulative chronic deficit of more than 150 million euros over 19 years. Nevertheless, one year later, to the day, the announcement of the release of King Street, it is at least permissible to ask the question: All that for that? Who can now say that a descent into Ligue 2, only delayed by 12 months, will cause less collateral damage over time – both at the sporting and administrative level – than that which already seemed promised to the Girondins at the end of last season? ? And a fortiori, who can certify that the Girondins will bounce back as quickly as possible and will find in the elite the place which should be theirs as lift specialists like Metz or Lorient know how to do, recalling that Toulouse, which may – to be to cross them if he beats Niort this Monday evening at the Stadium, will have taken two years before achieving it, barred with extreme accuracy last year for 2 goals conceded on his lawn in the first leg against… Nantes ?
The response to the fans?
So many questions for the moment without a precise answer, but which will soon be found. And if the precipice is very close, Bordeaux, until proof – mathematical – to the contrary, has not yet taken the plunge. The dog still moves, opens one eye and pricks up an ear, even if the Saint-Etienne this Wednesday are not far from having already cut the other… but not yet the tail, at the end of a match that the Marines and Blanc, given the stakes and the scenario, did not have the moral right not to win, exactly like the one against Troyes on March 6th. Two meetings which, negotiated otherwise with a victory in the key as it should have been, would place them tied with Clermont today, notwithstanding the slaps in Paris, Montpellier then Lyon. The 15 points still in play allow, for a few more days, to put forward the argument – increasingly weak however – that what could not be achieved in one match may be achieved in the next. If he was probably wrong to do so before, Bordeaux on the other hand must now manage his situation on sight, day by day. As Nantes was able to do a year before him, and in such a bad position after 33 matches (28 points instead of 27, i.e. one more draw and one less defeat than the Girondins, but only 5 wins, like them) in evening of April 18, 2021, after a series of 3 defeats. We know the rest: the Canaries of Kombouaré finished on a European rhythm (4 wins, one defeat) to win an almost miraculous barrage with 40 points. Given the general weakness of the teams at the bottom of the table this season, it will probably take less this time to obtain this oral catch-up, perhaps 37 or 38. But the real question is whether Bordeaux can glean 11 or 12 points over the month of competition that remains to be played, in other words achieve a faultless or almost. David Guion wants to believe so. Whatever the levers to be used to achieve this: whether they are politically correct levers and solely centered on the management and dynamics of the group, or whether they are other, less avowed but born of an environment and a context to which Girondin players, if they are men and have a little pride (to put it mildly), will not be able to remain insensitive…In the forefront of which are these tweets dripping with hate posted by certain groups of Nantes supporters of ineffable intelligence, who immediately “set the scene” and to whom the Marine et Blancs have a perfect opportunity to provide the most beautiful response this Sunday. If only to erase these two points lost in the first leg on October 17 in one of the… 11 matches they failed to win after leading in the score and dominating the debates, Nantes equalizing on almost their only occasion of the second act.
Returns of Marcelo and Hwang
For this last chance match, the Girondin coach recorded the return of his defender Marcelo Guedes, recovered from his injury, and the Korean striker Hwang, who served his suspension and missed so much Wednesday against St Etienne. The fate of the 3 other long-time injured (Elis, Pembélé, Sissokho) is unfortunately sealed for this season. The old lion Jimmy Briand, who was almost the hero of the match on Wednesday but had been at La Beaujoire on January 26, 2020 (1-0, 85th) during the last victory of the Girondins on Nantes soil will be in the group, like Niang and Dilrosun, came to the parlor this Friday. For the position of goalkeeper, it is not impossible that Costil, recovered for 3 games, finds his place in the Bordeaux cage, given the latest performances of Gaétan Poussin, brilliant in Lille but then more feverish and who has hardly was helped, it is true, by his defenders, first in Lyon then during the two goals conceded against the Greens, where Bouanga, on an acceleration of 4 meters, put a meter in the view of Gregersen (on the first) and where Mangas ran alongside Nordin instead of tackling him (on the second). To hope if not for a clean sheet (a pious wish…) but at least a positive result this Sunday, it is clear that the Girondins will have to show something quite different in this sector of play… On the Nantes side, it’s Wylan Cyprien, this player that Bordeaux let go in Parma in the winter of 2020 but that Nantes was able to afford, came in front of the cameras and the microphones this Friday. Antoine Kombouaré, who does not want to pour oil on the fire on the attitude of Canaris supporters, but above all expects his team to return to victory, which has been fleeing it at La Beaujoire for 2 games (it has only won only one of his last 6 league matches) to better prepare for the Coupe de France final against Nice, will be deprived of Nicolas Pallois the ex-Bordeaux, but also of Chirivella and Traoré, injured, and Marcus Coco, suspended after his expulsion at the end of the match in Marseille (3-2) this Wednesday evening.
[Par Christophe Monzie à Nantes, photos C.M.]
See you this Sunday, April 24, 2022 in the show Top Chrono from 14h15. The pre-match magazine with guests from Bordeaux and Nantes, including Gilles Rampillon, former FCN international midfielder, then kick-off at 3 p.m. Comments from Christopher Monzie assisted by Lawrence Brown. And after the meeting, go to our partner webgirondins.com for the debrief of this match!
Match to follow on all our frequencies live in full from the Beaujoire stadium in Nantes, on our website www.arlfm.com and on the ARL app on your phone!
Listen to the pre-match reactions on the microphone of Christopher Monsie.
reaction of David SCREENWRITINGthe coach of FC Girondins de Bordeaux.
reaction of Javairo DILROSUNDutch right winger of FC Girondins de Bordeaux.
reaction ofAntoine KOMBOUAREthe coach of FC Nantes.
reaction of Seagull CYPRIENFC Nantes midfielder.
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