The dates for the promotion/relegation playoffs for Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 for the 2016/17 season have been announced by the LFP. It will decide whether Lorient and Orleans, the teams who finished third from bottom in Ligue 1 and 2 respectively, will stay up or drop down a tier next season. An opportunity for Troyes and Championnat outfit Paris to earn promotion.
Ligue 1 promotion/relegation playoff
Troyes v Lorient 25 May, 2017 8.45 pm
Lorient vs Troyes 28 May, 2017 9.00 pm Continue reading
The Ligue 1 Team of the Year 2017, as voted for the UNFP has been officially revealed. PSG, who had eight players in the 2015-16 Team of the Season, have only three players in the 2016/17 edition- an indication of how tightly fought Ligue 1 has been this season. Continue reading
Paris Saint-Germain’s Edinson Cavani has been named Ligue 1’s player of the Season at the UNFP Trophy awards (Trophees UNFP- France’s version of the PFA). Cavani succeeds Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who won it last year before opting for a free transfer to Man Utd.
Monaco’s Subasic won Goalkeeper of the Year, while the Young Player of the Year, as expected, went to Kylian Mbappe.
Player of the Year– Edinson Cavani (PSG)
Young Player of the Year– Kylian Mbappe (Monaco)
Goalkeeper of the Year– Danijel Subasic (Monaco) Continue reading
The last French side left in European competition, Bruno Genesio’s Lyon, bowed out it last night despite beating Ajax 3-1. OL were facing a mountain after being beaten 4-1 in Amsterdam last week, and things got worse for Les Gones when teenager Kasper Dolberg put Ajax ahead.
However Alexandre Lacazette bagged a pair before half time to put them back into the contest and Ghezzal’s second half effort forced a nervy ending, with Ajax also reduced to ten men following Nick Viergever’s dismissal. However the Dutch side just about held on to seal their first European final since 1996.
Could this have been a final for OL instead if Lacazette had been fit for the first leg? Perhaps yes, given that injury allowed him to play only fifteen minutes at the Amsterdam Arena. The striker himself admitted that it could have been a different ball game if he had been fit, and added that his side had their chances, but didn’t take them, and needed to be more clinical. Continue reading
Young Kylian Mbappe added another feather to his cap by becoming the youngest ever player to score in a Champions League semifinal (18 years 140 days, and also the first goal Juve have conceded in the knockout stages of the CL this season), but ASM bowed out of the Champions League following a 2-1 loss in Turin (4-1 on aggregate).
Juve lead 2-0 from the first leg at Stade Louis II, and ASM’s slim hopes were practically finished by half time at the Juventus Stadium when strikes from Mandzukic and Alves (the latter a real stunner), saw Juve go in 2-0 ahead at the break Continue reading