Finally, what you’ve all been waiting for…

By: Nick | August 26th, 2008

Come on, admit it, the Ligue 1 party here at The Offside would never have been complete without the only Ligue 1 team to have never been relegated! That being said, hello everyone! My name is Nick, and I love football way too much. I will try my best to write with some regularity, although since I can usually be found glued to a screen watching football I don’t think that will be much of a problem.

Now, on to the news. Les auxerrois are now 1-2 in Ligue 1 this season thanks to clumsy, sloppy losses to Marseille and Nice (4-0 and 1-0, respectively) following a good winning start after defeating promoted Nantes 2-1 at the Stade Abbe-Deschamps.

However, the loss to Nice this past weekend was especially painful, as Auxerre was the better club on the pitch. If not for a terrible penalty miss by Kevin Lejeune in the dying moments of the first half the game would have ended in a more respectable 1-1 draw. Auxerre did very well to keep posession of the ball (61% vs. 39%) and had numerous chances to break the game open. Simply put they were out of luck.

Although the flow of the game was somewhat sporadic the Nice goalkeeper Lionel Letizi had to work hard to keep strong efforts from both Jean-Pascal Mignot and Stephane Grichting out of the net in the 2nd half but the ball simply would not go in. All I can say is oh well… sometimes the better team doesn’t always come away the winner in certain matches, and this was no exception.

At least Polish international Ireneusz Jelen looks happy... we'll need plenty of goals from him this season.

In other news the AJA have picked up yet another injury after promising young striker Julien Querica picked up a slight knee sprain against Nice and there’s no telling when he’ll be back. The season has barely begun and already Auxerre face an uphill battle. All is well though, because my nose tells me Auxerre won’t be one of the clubs fighting to stay in Ligue 1 this season. Coach Jean Fernandez, although unconventional for sure, will figure something out to keep this glorious little club on good level.

Quick prediction: AJA will surely finish better than the 15th spot that they finished with last season. This team is, though small, has the potential it needs to succeed. Let the season begin! (Ok, ok… I know it has already begun, but now it’s official!)

Finally here are some highlights from Auxerre’s win against Nantes:

Auxerre – Nantes
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… as well as this weekend’s loss to Nice (trust me, there weren’t many highlights against Marseille):