“Relegated to D2: Rodez’s Women’s Football Team Faces the Challenging Road to Recovery”

If Rodez’s season has been punctuated with ups and downs, the home stretch has left them touching D1 maintenance with their fingertips. More than at any other time. But on Saturday evening, Dijon grabbed 10th place with full hands. By beating 2-1 Montpellier, contender for the podium, the Côte-d’Oriennes have passed the gold blood, leaving the red zone only two days earlier. Rodez could only cash in on this result, like the final score against Paris FC (0-4). An outcome that killed the Aveyronnaises. Océane Saunier was looking for her words: “It’s hard, after that it’s like that, that’s life. There are more serious things than football. I had already experienced a descent (the D1, and 2019), and it’s hard.”

If the fate of blood and gold is now sealed, with a return to D2 just a year after being crowned champions, accepting it will not be easy. “It’s going to take us a little while to acknowledge the blow, then it’s done, it’s doneconceded midfielder Solène Barbance. Now we are going to finish the season quietly and in a few weeks, we will start again on another preparation. And move on, because there will be a new D2 next season (single hen) and we will have to try to come back up.”

“We will talk about next season after”

Saturday evening, the regrets of missed opportunities resurfaced. “When we miss something, we may not be punished at the same level as the more powerful, faster, more experienced players. And it pays cash every time, it’s seen and reviewed during this yearinsisted Rufié. Even if the victory of the PFC is indisputable, there are matches where there are … We cannot go back on it but there will inevitably be regrets. And as for talking about the rest and the future of the team, the technician preferred to cut it short: “We’ll have to digest all that, we’ll talk about the next season after.”

Especially since it must be remembered that the future of the Rafettes team also depends on the results of the men’s team. Asked in January about the structure of the women’s section at the Raf, its president Pierre-Olivier Murat underlined: “Can we stay in D1 for a long time? In D2? Go back and forth? Anyway, the level is there. But be careful, if the boys don’t stay in Ligue 2, we won’t be able to not keep this budget in women’s D1. It’s a club choice to have a high-performance women’s section.”

And with their bad operation against Pau (2-3 defeat) on Friday, Didier Santini’s men will also have to fight until the last second of the last day, on the lawn of Bordeaux, Friday. Being at the edge of the red zone, they will have to, like the Rafettes, watch what is happening on the other grounds. And in particular that of Le Havre which will receive Dijon. A DFCO currently relegated, just one point from Aveyron, and who has already eliminated a Raf team.