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Posts Tagged ‘Didier Deschamps’

“PARIS — Marseille dug deep to come from behind and win 2-1 at Rennes on Sunday, extending their winning run to seven games in all competitions and returning to within two points of the Champions League positions in Ligue 1.”

My AFP round-up of the weekend’s Ligue 1 matches, featuring a brace for Lille debutant Nolan Roux and a last-minute winner by Montpellier’s Olivier Giroud, can be found here.

“Rémy’s burgeoning partnership with Valbuena has been a key factor in the revival. Of the former Lyon striker’s nine league goals, five had been created by Valbuena, who tops the Ligue 1 assists chart with 10 decisive passes. The pair are motivated by a shared desire to secure places in France’s Euro 2012 squad and their understanding is underscored by an off-pitch friendship. “Sometimes, it feels like we’re the only ones playing and that everything will come off,” says Rémy.”

I’ve written a piece for ESPN Soccernet on how Didier Deschamps has transformed Marseille from a side that won just once in their opening 10 league games into one competing for silverware on four fronts. You can read it here.

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“PARIS — Lille’s French title defence received a significant setback on Sunday as their 17-game unbeaten run came to an end in a 2-0 defeat at resurgent Marseille in which Loïc Rémy claimed both goals.”

Read my AFP match report on Marseille’s victory over Lille, as well as a round-up of all the weekend’s Ligue 1 action, here.

“PARIS — Marseille put a trying week behind them in the best possible fashion on Sunday night, with a 3-0 victory at home to Paris Saint-Germain that put a sizeable dent in their arch rivals’ title hopes.”

To read my AFP match report on the first ‘clasico‘ of the Ligue 1 season, click here.

In the popular imagination, tactical innovations are often the product of deep rumination by battle-worn coaches desperate to reverse the fortunes of an ailing team. We are invited to imagine them pacing around their training ground offices late at night, a half-drained bottle of brandy within easy reach, or perhaps wide-eyed and manic, furiously rearranging salt and pepper mills to the bewilderment of their companions at a swanky dinner. Suddenly, the eureka moment arrives. The centre-forward needs to be withdrawn to a deeper role! The sweeper should play behind the defence! Wing-backs!

The reality, of course, is usually rather more prosaic – tactical shifts evolve by training ground experimentation, or are imposed upon a coach by injuries, suspensions or losses of form – but sometimes, a new strategy will present itself quite by accident.

With one sweep of Aaron Ramsey’s right boot, Marseille’s season lurched from desperate to tragi-comic on Wednesday night. Almost literally incapable of winning in Ligue 1 (where they have registered one victory in their opening 10 games), OM had found respite in the Champions League and were seconds from taking a valuable point from a dismal game with Arsenal when Johan Djourou’s cross drew in Marseille’s defenders like moths to a flame and left the Welsh midfielder with time and space to beat Steve Mandanda with an unflappable finish at the back post.

Defeat was cruel on Marseille, who had limited the visitors to just two clear second-half chances up to that point, although Borussia Dortmund’s unscheduled 3-1 defeat at Olympiakos means their chances of reaching the knockout phase remain in good shape. It would be unfortunate indeed for Didier Deschamps’ slide to slip from the competition at the group stage, for it is in the Champions League that their tactical escape route has been illuminated.

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“MARSEILLE — An injury-time goal by substitute Aaron Ramsey gave Arsenal a 1-0 win at Marseille on Wednesday that enabled Arsene Wenger’s side to leapfrog their opponents to top spot in Champions League Group F.”

My AFP match report can be read here.

This season’s final bite-size round-up of the week’s events in French football, for anyone who wants to keep up with what’s happening in Ligue 1 but hasn’t got the time (or the French) to do so.

Ligue 1
After 34 years in France’s top flight, during which they won five league titles, three Coupes de France, one Coupe de la Ligue and finished runners-up in the 2003-04 Champions League, Monaco were relegated to Ligue 2 following a 2-0 defeat by Lyon last Sunday.

For once Stade Louis II was packed to the rafters, but the home side looked no more cohesive than they have all season and eventually succumbed to second-half goals from Pape Diakhaté and Lisandro López. The legacy of a muddled transfer policy, Monaco’s descent already seems certain to cost them the services of goalkeeper Stéphane Ruffier and South Korea striker Park Chu-Young, and they are unlikely to be the only ones to jump ship.

Victory secured a Champions League place for OL, meaning Paris Saint-Germain had to content themselves with the Europa League. There was better news to come for PSG, however, after Colony Capital announced that they had agreed to sell a controlling 70 percent stake in the club to a group of Qatari investors widely believed to be the Qatar Investment Authority. Cue outlandish transfer rumours.

Rennes’ 3-2 defeat at champions Lille saw them lose out on fifth place to Sochaux, who won 3-1 at Arles-Avignon. Sochaux will therefore avoid the inconvenience of a July start in the Europa League, but they will do so without Francis Gillot, after the coach revealed he was in talks to join Bordeaux. Jean Fernandez, meanwhile, has stepped down as coach of Auxerre.

A Loïc Rémy double rescued a 2-2 draw for Marseille at Caen, but the outgoing champions face an uncertain summer. Gabriel Heinze and Lucho González are already heading for the exit, while Didier Deschamps has until June 15 to decide whether or not to trigger a contractual clause that allows him to buy himself out of his contract for €3 million.

Ligue 1 results
Sunday: Arles-Avignon 1-3 Sochaux, Bordeaux 2-0 Montpellier, Brest 0-2 Toulouse, Caen 2-2 Marseille, Lille 3-2 Rennes, Lorient 1-2 Auxerre, Monaco 0-2 Lyon, Nancy 4-0 Lens, Saint-Etienne 1-1 PSG, Valenciennes 2-1 Nice

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A version of this piece was written for Agence France-Presse and published on the AFP newswire on Tuesday, April 19.

For their rivals in the French title race, the manner in which Marseille have muscled their way into position in recent weeks bears an ominous trace of déjà vu.

Just as they did last season, when they ended an 18-year wait for the Ligue 1 championship, Marseille are steadily grinding out results while their opponents flounder. The 2-1 comeback victory at Montpellier on Sunday enabled Didier Deschamps’s side to close to within a point of wobbling leaders Lille, held to a 1-1 draw by Bordeaux the day before. Third-place Lyon, meanwhile, saw their title ambitions hit in a 1-0 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain that left them six points off the pace with seven games remaining.

Marseille’s victory at Montpellier bore all the hallmarks of the club’s success under Deschamps. The visitors fell behind in the 64th minute but reacted immediately, André-Pierre Gignac snapping out of his first-half slumber to apply a deft lobbed finish to Benoît Cheyrou’s exquisite raking pass. The winning goal arrived eight minutes from time, Taye Taiwo dispatching an assured penalty after Abdelhamid El Kaoutari had been penalised for holding back Loïc Rémy. “I won’t say that we were in control of proceedings, but the most important thing was to take the points,” said Deschamps with trademark pragmatism.

Coincidentally, it was at Montpellier’s Stade de la Mosson that last season’s title charge also began. A 2-0 defeat on January 30 left Marseille 12 points behind defending champions Bordeaux in sixth place, but the players’ reaction was a 15-game unbeaten run – including seven straight wins in March and April – that carried them to the brink of the title.

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A peculiar tactical phenomenon has been witnessed in France in recent months. In a microcosm of global trends that have shaped the game over the course of the last decade or so, Ligue 1′s top sides have all – without exception – begun to ditch their preferred formations in favour of a 4-2-3-1.

Marseille, whose title and Coupe de la Ligue successes last season were founded on a pragmatic 4-3-3 shape, were the first team to make the switch. For the crucial Champions League group game at Spartak Moscow in November, Mathieu Valbuena was moved infield from the right flank and allowed to adopt the central playmaking role that he covets. Didier Deschamps wanted to capitalise on the fact that Valbuena “is very accurate with his shooting” and the France international proved as much in the 18th minute when he put OM ahead with a precise, curling effort into the top-right corner. Marseille went on to win 3-0, in what was their most coherent performance of the season to date, and their 4-2-3-1 continues to emerge for high-pressure encounters, such as Sunday’s 2-1 defeat of Paris Saint-Germain.

Another team synonymous with the 4-3-3 in recent years has been Lyon. Towards the end of the first half in their 4-1 win at Saint-Etienne last month, however, Yoann Gourcuff was allowed to advance a little further forwards and occupy the role of the classic number 10 that was his at Bordeaux. With Jérémy Toulalan and Kim Källström retreating into deep, central positions, it meant Lyon were playing a 4-2-3-1 and Claude Puel reflected that it gave the team “a certain balance”.

The switch brought the best out of Lisandro López, moved to the left flank in support of central striker Bafétimbi Gomis, in much the same way that André-Pierre Gignac’s best form for Marseille has coincided with the times when he has played from the left in support of Brandão. Occasionally isolated when used as lone strikers, both López and Gignac appear to relish seeing more of the ball and both men are particularly adept at cutting inside and shooting at goal with their stronger right feet.

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A bite-size round-up of the week’s events in French football, for anyone who wants to keep up with what’s happening in Ligue 1 but hasn’t got the time (or the French) to do so.

Ligue 1
Once may have been a fluke, but to score match-winning goals in injury time twice in the space of a week suggests Lille may have the stomach for a bare-knuckle title brawl after all.

Seven days after Pierre-Alain Frau gave them a last-gasp victory at Marseille, Lille found themselves being held 1-1 at home to local rivals Valenciennes as the clock ticked into stoppage time. Cue Eden Hazard. Having located a pocket of space inside the visitors’ box, the Belgian showed a sublime, Velcro touch to cushion Rio Mavuba’s stinging pass before rattling a shot into the bottom-left corner. He claimed that he had “just hit it hard,” but no matter. Lille’s three-point lead remains intact and they now face a kinder run of fixtures than their rivals.

Rennes stayed second but saw their five-game winning run come to an end in a 2-0 defeat at home to Marseille. Lyon, adopting an unfamiliar 4-4-2 formation, prevailed by the same scoreline at Sochaux to leave the two Olympiques on 48 points, one shy of Rennes and four adrift of Lille.

With 31 minutes of the weekend’s action remaining, fifth-place Paris Saint-Germain were just a point behind Marseille and Lyon, only for Olivier Giroud’s slick strike – his second of the game – to earn Montpellier a 2-2 draw after they had fallen 2-0 down inside 13 minutes. For Paris, a club permanently on the brink of eruption, defeat in Sunday’s clasico at Marseille could spell the end of their Champions League ambitions.

At the bottom, Monaco displayed remarkable efficiency to claim a 1-0 win at Bordeaux despite mustering just two attempts on goal. They are now out of the relegation zone on goal difference above Auxerre, for whom the autumn’s Champions League sojourns to Milan and Real Madrid must now seem a very long way away.

Ligue 1 results
Friday: Rennes 0-2 Marseille; Saturday: Arles-Avignon 3-3 Lorient, Lens 0-1 Toulouse, Nancy 2-0 Caen, Nice 1-0 Auxerre, Saint-Etienne 2-0 Brest, Sochaux 0-2 Lyon; Sunday: Bordeaux 0-1 Monaco, Lille 2-1 Valenciennes, PSG 2-2 Montpellier

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