One hundred and sixty-six days later, we played football again in France and the opening match of the 2020-2021 Ligue 1 ended with a sad 0-0 between Bordeaux and Nantes, hardly armed to do better during this recovery hardly exciting. This football after, with a limited gauge and an audience masked for fear of the Covid-19 which has haunted the L1 since the final cessation of last season in March, did not shine by its quality.
The gap with the European posters played in Germany, for the Europa League, and in Lisbon for the Champions League, seemed immense on Friday. Not easy to have the honors of the opening match. But Paris SG, reigning French champion, remains mobilized in Portugal in search of the European Grail on Sunday in the C1 final against Bayern Munich. His runner-up Marseille was struck by five cases of Covid-19, forcing the postponement of his match against Saint-Etienne. And it was Bordeaux and Nantes who were sent to the fire.
Guinea pigs
Classic of certain decades past, this replacement poster launched Téléfoot, the channel of the new broadcaster Mediapro, and inaugurated on behalf of the L1 the maximum level of 5,000 people authorized in the stadium (except for exceptions). The Ultramarines, ambianceurs assigned to absent subscribers, the Matmut Atlantique often sounded hollow on Friday, not helped, it is true, by the spectacle offered by these two teams, not really ready to make this “League of talents” shine on export.
At the same time, could it be otherwise with regard to the pedigree of the two guinea pigs of the day, their disrupted summer preparations, one by the virus, the other by the long soap opera Paulo Sousa? The successor of the Portuguese, Jean-Louis Gasset, had surely dreamed of a better scenario for his return to the Girondin bench, ten years after having left it in the footsteps of Laurent Blanc, the trophy cabinet well filled.
Shaken plans
He knew his team lacked benchmarks, automatisms, certainties. But he had not thought of playing ten after twenty minutes following the exclusion of young Mehdi Zerkane (20th), the most dashing of Bordeaux until then, author of an involuntary sole on the shin of Nicolas Pallois. A fault worth red according to the referee M. Bastien, after consultation of the video referee. This exclusion completely upset Gasset's plans and offered nearly an hour during an attack-defense scenario, a boon for the Canaries of Christian Gourcuff. Applied in construction with Pedro Chirivella at the helm, they proved ineffective when it came to breaking through or failing the local compact block and facing a numerical inferiority.
Strangely, after having run a lot and leaving a lot of strength, the Bordelais raised their heads when a few "Longuépée Resignations" rocketed from the South Turn, targeting President Frédéric Longuépée, grieved by some supporters. In turn, Toma Basic from afar (37th), Otavio from even further on the lob (37th), then Ui-Jo Hwang from the head on a corner (45th + 2) brought back hope and aroused some applause.
But it would have taken a little more for this inaugural match to really get going. From a distance too, Chirivella tried, without finding the frame (52nd), the only significant action of the second act. The people of Nantes, however, have shown envy, movement, but they lacked the precision in the exchanges, the shifts, the risk-taking and some duplication so that their waves do not put the fault of the Girondins above all united. , who will easily be satisfied with this sharing of points.
Read also
- The 2020-21 calendar of Ligue 1