Daryl's Notebook: What I learned from French football last weekend
Ignoring the charm and the tourist trap that is Paris, there is so much more to France than the popular cities, and that is the same for French football.
While attractive football was not the centre stage for my trip to Italy, I definitely did learn quite a bit during my time there. But now let’s head back up North, where French football are calling me with their young managers and young prospects popping up at almost every clubs across the country. Staying away from the tourist trap in Paris, Ligue 1 have so much more to it that many are overlooking because of its “farming league” tag. Join me on this trip to one of the most charming countries in the world!
Strasbourg 2-2 Lens
Reason for choosing: Two French teams battling each other with two…English coaches on the sideline? Now that’s interesting! Liam Rosenior did a decent job with Hull City last season in the Championship, and it was a surprising decision to let him go at the end of the season, but I’m glad that he now has the opportunity to test himself at a top-flight league in Europe and with a young squad. A similar situation happened to Will Still last summer as he stepped down from Stade Reims, and instead of going back to England, he chose to make the step up to a Lens side that had been punching above their weights under Franck Haise. Two interesting coaches, two interesting teams, should be a recipe for an interesting match!
Quick thoughts:
It was only early into the first half, but Lens looked like they wanted to dominate the match straight away. Their play out from the back was interesting as their midfielders were concentrated in the central area and used their positioning to pull Strasbourg’s defenders and midfielders out of their positions. This resulted in an unorganised defensive line for Strasbourg, allowing Abdukodir Khusanov to make a few long passes over the top and find M’Bala Nzola running in behind.
Meanwhile, Strasbourg’s determination to play short from the back gave Lens the opportunity to set up a man-to-man press, which they executed well. But slowly, the host realised that they could also exploit the space behind Lens’ back three as they dragged more Lens players into their own half. A couple of chances were created for Emanuel Emegha from similar situations, but the Dutch striker was not able to capitalise on them as Lens’ defence still held strong.
I was slowly getting impressed by Khusanov as he looked good as Lens’ central centre-back, made crucial interceptions, and held off challenges coming from Emegha. On the ball, he also impressed me with his passes over the top to N’Zola or through balls to find Adrien Thomasson or Andy Diouf. Speaking of both Thomasson and Diouf, they also looked quite good in midfield as they ran the game for Lens while was also responsible for distributing the ball and progressing attacks down the central area, which remained a key preference in Lens’ attacking play for this match.
Meanwhile on the left-hand side, Jhoanner Chávez looked like Lens’ weakest link as he did not contribute much to their attacks and also looked like second-best in defensive duels. The fact that he also conceded a penalty and directly helped Strasbourg equalised the match did not help his case.
On the opposite end, the host decided that it was the right thing to switch from a possession-based style to a counter-attacking style by bringing on Sékou Mara for Abakar Sylla. With a 4-4-2, they were able to play more long passes towards the strikers and allowed both Mara and Emegha to be in 1v1 situations against Lens’ outside centre-backs. This also allowed the rest of the team to join the attack as the strikers held up the ball and laid it off to one of the wide players.
With Strasbourg dropped deeper to defend their tie and one point, Lens managed to create more chances towards Đorđe Petrović’s goal. But even with the substitutes that came on, the away side still could not find the winning goal as they kept wasting decent and good opportunities to score. On a few occasions, both Nzola and Diouf managed to get close to the goal but they either missed the ball or their shot was just not dangerous enough, leading to a goal-scoring chance wasted.
Overall: It was a match where Lens had dominated and could have easily come away with a win. But they just were not clinical enough in front of goal and Strasbourg managed the game well enough to shut off most attacking chances from the away side. Are there rooms to improve for both teams? Definitely. It will be interesting to follow their progress over the course of this season and see how both Lens and Strasbourg improve on these aspects.
Stade Reims 4-2 Montpellier
Reason for choosing: A continuity from Will Still, which is not a coincidence at all, but Stade Reims have found themselves at a better place after the Still brothers left for Lens. With a squad to follow and an interesting manager in Luka Elsner, Reims should still be on my list of teams to follow across Europe this season. Meanwhile, Montpellier have not found too much success under Michel Der Zakarian as they have languished in the bottom half of the table for a few seasons now. They did and do have a few interesting prospects coming through, but they have not caught my attention for a while now.
Quick thoughts:
Quite interesting to see Reims’ in possession shape, which resembled a 4-2-4 but had a few interesting changes where central midfielder Yaya Fofana dropped to the left of the centre-backs to allow left-back Nhor Sangui to move inside and take up Fofana’s position. Meanwhile, up front, attacking midfielder Marshall Munetsi pushed forward and acted as a second striker while striker Oumar Diakité and right winger Junya Ito occasionally swapped positions with each other. Their shape would sometimes look like this:
Montpellier’s shape followed a similar trend that have been observed throughout Europe in the past few seasons. Defensive midfielder Joris Chotard would drop in between the centre-backs while right-back Falaye Sacko moved inside to leave the right flank for winger Arnaud Nordin. Overall, they aimed to create a 3-2-5 shape with five attackers going up against Reims’ back four.
Throughout the first 30 minutes, Reims showed how good they were with their attacks down the left wing and through the half-spaces. Their build up forced an overload from Montpellier to one side of the pitch, which opened up the opportunity to isolate the winger into a 1v1 situation. That was exactly what they did for Keito Nakamura as the Japanese winger managed to find himself in 1v1 situations with Montpellier’s right-back Falaye Sacko on a few occasions and got to cause a bit of havoc down that side of the pitch. Montpellier just did not have an answer to that plan besides from doubling down the coverage for that wing by asking Nordin to drop back and to be more aggressive in challenges.
However, one positive that the away side could take away from the first half was the performances of Joris Chotard and Téji Savanier. Both are still super underrated as playmakers, and they showed a bit of their quality through some of the long passes to find Nordin on the right or left back Lucas Mincarelli. While Savanier might be a bit too old to be considered a ‘bargain buy’, Chotard should still be a decent option for a bottom-half/mid-table team who are looking for a #6 or a deep-lying #8.
Into the second half and Montpellier seemed like the side that wanted to dominate the game more. They were looking for long passes over the top to progress the ball into Reims’ final third, but the host’s defence still managed to hold strong as their defenders cleared most of the aerial balls with ease. They looked more desperate for goals to turn the game around, yet their plans just weren’t working.
Meanwhile, Reims’ attacks were led by the energetic Japanese duo of Junya Ito and Keito Nakamura with Reims dropping slightly deeper by the minutes. Elsner’s side utilised the pace of both wingers to start counter-attacks and get past the opposition’s defenders, then found Diakité up front, who would then try to finish the attacking moves from inside of the box.
Even though Montpellier’s performance was below average, at least they looked quite clinical when it came to capitalising on Reims’ mistakes. Both of their goals came from forced mistakes from inside of Reims’ own half and Nordin took both of those chances well to score. The only problem was the defence undid most of the attackers’ effort as they immediately conceded a penalty after Nordin’s pulled one back. Just not a good day overall for the away side.
Overall: There is definitely a reason why Reims are flying quite high on Ligue 1’s league table right now even though it is still early into Elsner’s tenure. While their performance was not perfect, they still looked quite impressive at home and was unarguably the dominant team in the first half. There were some shaky moments, mainly due to the youngsters looking a bit lacking in experience, but Reims should feel proud of how they won the match. Meanwhile, Montpellier continued their average showing under Der Zakarian, which is a shame for me since they have a very talented squad that can play good football.