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Team Focus: Gazélec Ajaccio's Historic Moment is a Shock For On-fire Nice

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Team Focus: Gazélec Ajaccio's Historic Moment is a Shock For On-fire Nice “N’attendez pas la pluie pour mouiller le maillot” - ‘don’t wait for the rain to get your shirt soaking wet’, says the banner behind the goal at Gazélec Ajaccio’s modest Stade Ange-Casanova. If Corsica can be climatically inhospitable at this time of ...

Team Focus: Caen Flying High in Ligue 1’s Season of the Underdog

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Team Focus: Caen Flying High in Ligue 1’s Season of the Underdog Habitually, the post-match treadmill for a head coach is meticulously planned. Back to the dressing room for an initial debrief with the players, then it’s onto the main press conference with waiting journalists. The television cameras get their footage either before or after, before the away ...

Team Focus: Fierce Competition Apparent as France Brush Aside Denmark

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Team Focus: Fierce Competition Apparent as France Brush Aside Denmark Didier Deschamps came close to his Aimé Jacquet moment but the worst, it appears, has since passed. The run of three defeats in four games that led into the last international window hadn’t put the former Juventus, Monaco and Marseille boss in any serious danger - and he hadn’t ha...

Team Focus: Angers’ Dream Start to the Season Continues

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Team Focus: Angers’ Dream Start to the Season Continues “I have intelligent players who fought against human nature,” said Angers coach Stéphane Moulin after Saturday’s win over Bastia. “There could have been a sense of relaxing or decompressing after the feat we managed in Marseille (winning 2-1 at Vélodrome last we...

Player Focus: Advanced Position Giving Di María Wings in Paris

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Player Focus: Advanced Position Giving Di María Wings in Paris It is fair to say that it is difficult to imagine two more sharply contrasting on-pitch personalities than Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ángel Di María. Both may be extravagantly talented, but while one tops his fireworks off with bombast and bravado, the other is more subtle, spindly and elu...

Team Focus: Stylish Nice Once Again Shine on the Road

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Team Focus: Stylish Nice Once Again Shine on the Road They may be separated by a 250km ferry ride, but when Nice and Bastia meet, it’s a derby. That is the feeling on both the Côte d’Azur and the northeastern coast of Corsica and accordingly, sparks tend to fly when the pair come together. After some unsavoury incidents surrounding re...

Team Focus: Pressure on Courbis as Montpellier Struggle Without Last Season's Stars

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Team Focus: Pressure on Courbis as Montpellier Struggle Without Last Season's Stars The very first goal of a team’s season should be – and usually is – a moment of great joy and release, sweeping away the cobwebs after a few months off, and opening the route towards an exciting new campaign, replete with fresh hopes and possibilities.That has not, sadly, been the ...

Team Focus: Still Many Questions For Improving France

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Team Focus: Still Many Questions For Improving France “It’s a style that I don’t have yet.” Didier Deschamps’ words to describe his reasons for calling up Nabil Fekir for the first time, back in March, were unusually imprecise and vague. Fekir tends to have that effect on people. That particular blend of bewitching footwor...

Team Focus: Are Rennes Finally On Their Way Up?

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Team Focus: Are Rennes Finally On Their Way Up? Never judge any team on the first day of their season. Stade Rennais, to widespread surprise, are the latest to prove that cliché true. When they were beaten 2-1 at Bastia in their season opener, you’d have given coach Philippe Montanier little chance of hanging onto his job until Chris...

Team Focus: Monaco’s Squad Depth Already in Question

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Team Focus: Monaco’s Squad Depth Already in Question Many different tags have been applied to Monaco since the club changed tack in terms of recruitment, post-James Rodriguez and Radamel Falcao. They’ve been described as the new Porto, and one of the most exciting young teams in Europe. Yet after Saturday’s limp draw at Toulouse, coach Leo...