Zapping Goal! Football club ASSE: the best statements of the year 2020
“Some Saint-Etienne supporters would be ready to see their team fall to allow Christophe Galtier to be champion with Lille”. This reflection by a colleague could have made Claude Puel jump on Friday during the press briefing. There was more than a grain of truth to this statement. Beyond the desire to please the former coach of the Greens, some hoped to play a bad trick on the Parisians, in memory of the final of the Coupe de France and the expulsion of Loïc Perrin that they did not still not digested. Rather than launching into a lesson, the Forézien trainer got away with a pirouette “It’s normal that some people think that, but they are not going to ask us to lose on purpose, I don’t think that go that far. If we win and Lille are champion, they will be happy ”.
There was however subject to debate, as when the ultras from Nice deployed a banner before the trip of the Azureans to LOSC against the backdrop of rivalry with Monaco: “Do us a favor by proxy, we want Lille champion”. At a time when we hope to find our way back to the stands, to catch fire, we prefer to take these thoughts for jokes. We already hear enough observers doubt after stunning results, arbitrations discussed, tackles not sanctioned. No need to add more. We are delighted to see Angers play the blow to the ground in Marseille … and Saint-Étienne offer a good resistance at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium.
Fonte has never seen ASSE play like this. Really?
“We did not want to distort the championship” summarized Timothée Kolodziejczak at the microphone of Canal. Everything has been said and if there is to be controversy over the result, we prefer it to originate from the quality of the Stéphanois match, their fighting spirit, their solidarity and their organization. We therefore prefer to smile at the heated reaction of an irritated José Fonte: “It’s incredible the way Saint-Étienne operated tonight. I’ve never seen them play like that ”. No doubt the Portuguese did not follow their last performances, including that at the Parc des Princes where they were very close to the same performance as against the leader. Claude Puel noted it “We are in line with what we have done in all the last matches … It was a great meeting, we were up to it and we sometimes put Lille in difficulty. “.
Christophe Galtier implicitly admitted, therefore more lucid than his captain “I felt tension, nervousness and I did not recognize my team at the start of the game. We played a very average game ”.
Real sports fans will not complain about it, nor about the final of this championship highlighted by Galette while Laurent Paganelli spoke to him about the title “We are not (even) sure yet to be in the Champions League, c ‘is the reality of football’.
This is why we love the sport, we will add, why the players, technicians and supporters fought when a few financial greats more than balloons advanced their European Super League project. It is this uncertainty that makes stadiums vibrate, this part of the dream that others are trying to control, taking advantage of all the loopholes in the system. So when OL seized the CNOSF to push back the suspension of De Sciglio, giving ideas to PSG to allow Neymar and Kimpembe to play in the Cup final. It’s legal, moral less. But that’s another story, not that of those who play the game. “
Didier BIGARD