Stade Rennais players warm up before the preparation match for the Ligue 1 Uber eats championship between Stade Rennais and SCO Angers at Stade de la Rabine in Vannes, on August 1, 2020. Players of Stade Rennais are warming up before the friendly match between Stade Rennais and SCO Angers in Stade de la Rabine in Vannes, on August 1st, 2020.//LEPIHIFMAXIME_PIHIF03634/2008021112/Credit:Maxime Le Pihif / SIPA / 2008021114 – Maxime Le Pihif / SIPA
- The French Ligue 1 championship resumes this Friday (9 p.m.) with the Bordeaux-Nantes match
- A post-Covid season that will not be like the others.
- Viruses, stadiums, transfer window or broadcasters, there are changes at all levels
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Alone on the sand with your eyes in the water, with friends or with your family, you were totally disconnected during your post-Covid vacation to the point of having skipped the football news? It is high time to refresh your footballing memories.
If the whole of France will have its eyes on Lisbon on Sunday night and the first PSG Champions League final, we should not forget the resumption of our good old Farmers’s League this Friday with an enticing Bordeaux-Nantes. Six months after the last match of a Ligue 1 season stopped before its end by the Covid-19, a lot of things have happened. And the offseason was rough.
The Covid-19 has rotted the offseason
Friendly matches canceled, preparations truncated, very strict health protocol applied, the coronavirus has inevitably rotten footballers back. With more than 40 players from 11 clubs testing positive, Ligue 1 has not been spared the virus. With nine cases, Strasbourg wins the very little coveted palm of the most affected club.
Fortunately, with the exception of the Montpellier Junior Samba, hospitalized in April, the vast majority of cases were not serious. Still, the Covid has not disappeared and could continue to make a mess of the elite. The postponement of Marseille-Sainté from the first day will undoubtedly not be an isolated case despite a very strict health protocol in place in all the clubs. But which is already starting to cringe.
Will the Covid protocol nip the new Ligue 1 season in the bud? via @20minutesSport https://t.co/rvPXfNWRDD
— 20 Minutes Sport (@20minutesSport) August 20, 2020
Jonathan David broke the piggy bank of Losc
Coronavirus requires, the transfer window is still far from over. For the first time, French clubs will even have the right to do their shopping until October 5. But some did not wait for this deadline to strengthen. During the summer, the most significant (and the most expensive) transfer was undoubtedly that of Jonathan David in Lille.
The northern club did not hesitate to pay more than 27 million euros to secure the services of this Canadian revealed to the Belgians of Gantoise. The 20-year-old replaces Victor Osimhen who left for… 82 million euros in Naples. Thanks Luis Campos.
Jonathan David becomes Losc’s most expensive recruit https://t.co/CO4DMmuf48 via @20minutes
— VERNON SUBUTEX (@VernonSub1811) August 12, 2020
Apart from Lille, the transfer window will also have been lively on the Côte d’Azur. With six rookies (Kamara (Reims), Schneiderlin (Everton), Bambu (Athlético Paranaense), Daniliuc (Bayern Munich) Gouiri (OL) and Lopes (Seville)), OGC Nice and Ineos, its new owner, hit hard . With Tino Kadewere (Le Havre), Lyon went to seek the top scorer in L2. OM also used the power of the port of Le Havre to nab midfielder Pape Gueye.
Promoted this season, Lorient and Lens have also broken their piggy bank. The Merlus have recruited Adrian Grbic, the Austrian striker from Clermont bought 9 million euros. Same crack in the Blood and Gold with the arrival of
Seko Fofana bought 8.5 million euros (excluding bonus) from the Italians of Udinese. On the sidelines, the only big summer upheaval was the arrival of Jean-Louis Gasset in Bordeaux instead of Paulo Sousa, who left in full preparation.
The Ultras will shun the stadiums limited to 5,000 places
We will have to wait a few more months before seeing the French stadiums refuel. Due to the coronavirus, the level of sports venues will be limited to 5,000 spectators excluding the prefectural exemption that only Le Puy du Fou has managed to catch for the moment.
In the meantime, the clubs will have to make choices, often favoring their subscribers and still not all. A situation that is not to the liking of many groups of supporters (Lens, Angers, Nantes, Lorient, Reims, Nîmes, etc.) who have therefore decided to boycott the stadiums as long as attendance is limited. “It is inconceivable, for us, to enact these selection criteria. The public Blood and Gold is a whole ”, estimate in particular the Red Tigers of the famous stand Marek in Lens, The recovery promises to be sad in the stands.
Red Tigers press release: The @RCLens is an addiction. Today, for the first time, however, reason must prevail over passion. pic.twitter.com/1Prb6j0CoF
– Pierre (@PierreRevillon) August 17, 2020
New channels for Ligue 1
This first season of the next world will also be new on the screens. If Canal + has managed to keep two Ligue 1 matches, the new French football player is now called Téléfoot. The channel was created by Mediapro, a Spanish group with Chinese capital, which has spent 800 million euros annually to obtain the broadcasting rights for Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 until 2024. More specifically, Téléfoot will broadcast eight matches per day of each of these two championships.
For fans of #Foot ????
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Subscriptions, programs, stars … What you need to know about Téléfoot https://t.co/5pqiTqjZfD via @20minutes— Fred Softway (@fredsoftway) August 18, 2020
But the eponymous channel of the famous TF1 show will not be the only novelty of the season. By spending 50 million euros, the Free group obtained the right to broadcast extracts and images of Ligue 1 matches with a slight delay of one minute. The summaries of the matches will even be broadcast on the operator’s boxes from the final whistle. A very nice move that could well be the revelation of this special season.
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