Ligue 1 Review | Inexperienced Strasbourg sink in football’s ‘shark tank’

Scouting, acquiring, and platforming young talent is the Raison d’être behind BlueCo’s acquisition of Strabsourg. The squad is filled with some of Europe’s most exciting talent, but it has come at the expense of having experienced figures in the dressing room to act as guides and mentors. Ben Chilwell and back-up keeper Karl-Johan Johnsson are the grizzled anomalies in an evergreen dressing room. 

It is a situation that has left leadership roles to players who have felt entirely unsuited to them. Emanuel Emegha’s captaincy has been the most emblematic of these failures, with the striker out of his depth as the team’s voice and diplomat. 

He’s spent most of the season out on the sidelines or frustrating the fanbase, either by signing a pre-contract agreement with Chelsea or by making misjudged comments, like when he told Dutch media he didn’t know where Strasbourg was before signing, saying, “I thought it was in Germany, but it turned out to be in France. Well, I think everyone knows Strasbourg now.” 

The big question for Strasbourg

What next for Strasbourg and these players is the big question that will be floating around the region until the transfer window opens. Without European football, how well will Le Racing be able to keep its young stars? There will be plenty of admirers for Valentén Barco, Samir El Mourabet, Martial Godo, Diego Moreira, Guela Doué, and Joaquin Panichelli. While the Chelsea loanees and Emegha will be gone. 

For O’Neil, the talent drain isn’t the only thing that concerns him. As he said on Sunday, “We also need to improve the club culture.” But how well can a club culture be built when the key selling point to prospective talent is that Le Racing is a giant shop window? How do you build something permanent and lasting when the nature of the project is so transitory? Can you get players to invest fully across an entire season, knowing that by the end of the campaign, they might be gone to pastures new? 

This week’s Ligue 1 sub-plots

• AJ Auxerre put their fate within their own hands on Sunday evening when they came from behind to defeat relegation rivals OGC Nice. Level on points with Les Aiglons, but with a greater goal difference coming into the final game of the season against Lille OSC. Read how it happened HERE.

• A narrow win for Lille over AS Monaco helped Les Dogues leapfrog Olympique Lyonnais onto the podium. With one game left, there is still all to play for in the UEFA Champions League race. Read the full match report HERE.

• Amid a melodramatic week of French football, a tragedy was masked. Corsican football’s decline continued this weekend with SC Bastia’s imminent relegation to Ligue 3 soon to be confirmed, meaning that for the first time since 1965, no Corsican side will be in the top two tiers of French football. Read all about it HERE.

GFFN | Nick Hartland