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A regenerated Stade Malherbe Caen attacks the season with appetite

2022-06-28T17:02:43.967Z


Reinvigorated by its good second half of last season, SM Caen resumed training in better spirits. The transfer window before


The ritual is repeated in June on the Stade Malherbe Caen Twitter account.

The club mischievously greets its supporters early in the morning, a harbinger of the announcement of a new recruit.

This Tuesday, June 28, SM Caen formalized its eighth arrival of the offseason, in the person of defender Johann Obiang.

A rollercoaster that contrasts with last season, where Malherbe had resumed training without the slightest new face.

🆕 @Ligue1UberEats, @Ligue2BKT & @NationalFFF, @JohannObiang241 has known everything in 🇫🇷 #SMCaen #TeamSMC

— Stade Malherbe Caen (@SMCaen) June 28, 2022

Coach Stéphane Moulin had called for a more responsive transfer window.

So finding a group already expanded Thursday, June 23 for the start of the school year, he did not hide his satisfaction: “We must congratulate the recruitment unit, the sports director, the president and the shareholders.

It is a collective work that allows us to have made good progress”.

And which should save precious time in the preparation of a group that the Caen technician is leading for the second year.

And as much as Caen was still bogged down in its setbacks from previous years and its financial limits a year ago, this time around, the SMC seems to be regaining the serenity of a normal preseason.

“Not nothing happened last year, nuance Stéphane Moulin.

But it's true that the first part of the championship was very difficult for everyone.

I had the feeling that everyone imagined that we were going to fall back into what had been experienced in previous years.

The second part finally gave a lot of hopes for the sequel”.

At the edge of the red zone at the end of 2021, Caen finished 7th in Ligue 2, its best ranking since relegation in 2019.

"We need players who are imbued with the identity of the club"

While the Calvados staff will work “with a group [that he] practically chose, whereas last year it was a legacy”, he expects to “do better this season” with a “better armed” team.

Only, the transfer window is also inevitably active in the direction of departures.

Among the most notable: the tireless young midfielder Johann Lepenant has gone to Lyon and his midfield partner Jessy Deminguet is also in the process of leaving.

Not to mention the return of striker Nuno Da Costa to his English club Nottingham Forest, after a conclusive loan in Normandy.

If there is any hope of bringing Da Costa back, Caen have had to rethink things.

In the middle, he notably bet on the best tackler in Ligue 2, Quentin Daubin.

With his full beard, the former Pau had touches in L1.

He finally chose Caen.

“This is where I felt the most interest.

It's a big Ligue 2 club. I felt that Stade Malherbe wanted to get back to the top level.

Here, there are major infrastructures.

It's new for me but I'm very happy to be here", confides the neo-Norman, called upon to blend into the state of mind wanted by the leaders and the coach: "You need players who are imbued with the identity of the club and who want to participate in something with us".

Read alsoFootball: SM Caen mourns Salah, its “number 1 supporter”

One of the new weed-prone faces should also fit perfectly with Stéphane Moulin's approach: defender Romain Thomas, very familiar with the coach after having worked with him for nine seasons in Angers, including seven in the top flight.

He too was courted in Ligue 1. He too chose Caen.

“I know where I come from.

This club has a football soul.

I took a little time to reflect but I didn't hesitate too much to come”.

At 34, Romain Thomas is called upon to assume a leading role within a defense which, with the solid Ibrahim Cissé and Emmanuel Ntim, will undoubtedly serve as a solid base in a championship where the best defenses regularly appear in the best places. .

With the transition from Ligue 1 to 18 clubs from next season, there will only be two promotions to Ligue 2 this year, and no playoffs.

A formula which restricts the possibilities of going up for clubs like Caen, while the competition promises to be very tough (Saint-Étienne, Metz, Sochaux, Paris FC, Guingamp, Le Havre, Dijon, Amiens, to quote an already long list but not exhaustive of the suitors).

But the new management team has set a goal of joining its staff within three years, which is entering Year II of the plan.

Doing better than 7th sets the tone.

The SMC is expected in the fight at the top of the table.

Resumption on July 30

If it will be necessary to confirm on the ground with a workforce that could still move until the end of August, the prospects are encouraging for a long tormented club.

In the continuity of a beautiful 7th place in Ligue 1 in 2016, Caen had painfully snatched two maintenances before falling in Ligue 2. Worse: this thrill of spring 2021, where Malherbe came close to relegation in National, saved by a miraculous penalty at the last second of the last day.

Last season seems to have been that of a real renaissance, extended by the epic of the under-18 team until the final of the Gambardella Cup at the Stade de France (loss on penalties against Lyon in raising curtain of the Coupe de France final between Nantes and Nice) and the great adventure of the women's section,

Read also“Me, Denis Brogniart, supporter of SM Caen”

Nice courses accompanied tirelessly by the supporters, in the wake of a Malherbe Normandy Kop fully reconciled with its Red and Blues.

Caen had left its public on a last match in front of 18,000 spectators at the Michel-d'Ornano stadium.

There was then no more issue.

Perhaps the time has come to raise the audience with higher hopes.

See you in Nîmes on July 30 for the 1st day then the following week against Metz for the return home.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2022-06-28

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