Zidane, return from Bastia, Dijon and nuggets… Ten reasons to follow this Ligue 2 season

Ligue 2 in clear

After nearly ten years on beIN Sports, Ligue 2 is making its appearance on the L'Équipe channel program.

The latter reached an agreement with Amazon, which had first won the rights, to broadcast the Saturday multiplex (eight matches) during the first ten days of the championship.

It is therefore the first time since the 90s that the second division will be broadcast unencrypted in France.

No more excuses not to take advantage of it.

Stéphane Moulin and Thierry Laurey, return to Ligue 2

After ten years in Maine-et-Loire, Stéphane Moulin decided to close his Angevin chapter. The iconic Angers SCO coach now heads SM Caen, which came close to relegation to National 1 last season. It was he, in 2015, who brought Angers up to Ligue 1 after 21 years of absence in the Elite. Does this bode well for the Normans who have stagnated in L2 for two seasons now?

Thierry Laurey also knows how to get his teams up in Ligue 1. First with Gazelec Ajaccio in 2015, then with RC Strasbourg in 2017. After maintaining the Strasbourg training in L1, the coach left Alsace for the Paris region this summer.

Now coach of Paris FC, in place of René Girard, he will have the heavy task of raising the Parisian team to the next level for the first time in more than 40 years.

Enzo Zidane, the Ruthenian experience

It will be one of the big attractions of the championship. If his father has never known Ligue 2 during his playing career, Enzo Zidane landed this summer in Rodez to try to revive and help the Aveyron club to maintain itself for the third consecutive season. Trained at Real Madrid, the eldest son of "

Zizou

»Has never managed to win in the various clubs that welcomed him after his departure from the White House in 2017. Deportivo Alaves, Lausanne, CD Avec, UD Almeria… There is only at the time of his loan at Rayo Majadahonda that he seemed to gain importance since he played 34 matches there in 2018-2019.

This did not prevent the club from the Spanish second division from falling back to D3.

For his first professional experience in France, it would be nice to see the 26-year-old shine in Aveyron.

The return of Bastia, the beautiful story

Falling back to National 3 in 2017 after a cataclysmic season in Ligue 1 and colossal financial problems, the Bastians are returning to professional football.

After only one season, 2017-2018, to have been unable to do better than maintaining National 3, the Corsican club has continued since promotions and league titles.

Last year, Bastia flew over the National 1, finishing 1st with eight points ahead of its runner-up, Quevilly-Rouen.

The story is beautiful as the audience of Furiani will be able to return to the spans this season.

Led by this fervor, will SC Bastia manage to chain a fourth climb in as many seasons?

Clear ambitions for Dijon

Far below the 19 other Ligue 1 formations, the DFCO dragged its misery throughout last season.

This gave him time to prepare for his reconstruction.

The Burgundians have probably achieved the best transfer window among the Ligue 2 teams. Daniel Congré (ex-Montpellier), Mickaël Le Bihan (ex-Auxerre) and especially the return of Baptiste Reynet (ex-Nîmes), three years after his departure : Dijon has restructured itself perfectly on paper.

It remains to be seen on the ground but David Linarès' men will be candidates for the climb.

The last team to recover directly after its descent is Metz, back in the Elite in 2019-2020.

The Crocs must bounce back

If the Crocos finished with 14 points ahead of Dijon last year in Ligue 1, they seem to have less well prepared for their descent.

Nîmes has already lost Baptiste Reynet (Dijon), Sofiane Alakouch (Metz), Birger Meling (Rennes), Renaud Ripart (Troyes) and is preparing to sell Zinédine Ferhat, announced in several L1 teams.

In return, the Gardois have still not recruited enough to compensate for these important departures.

The season could be complicated and an immediate return to the highest level does not seem possible from a squad's point of view.

It's up to Pascal Plancque to mobilize his group to try to get back in the process.

Adli and Virginius, two nuggets

Amine Adli and Alan Virginius. If the first has already exploded last year with Toulouse, having even been named best player in the championship, the second could well follow this trajectory. Appeared fifteen times last year with Sochaux, Alan Virginius is a young left winger (18 years old) who is just waiting to hatch. Author of three goals and two assists last season, the Frenchman is already the subject of much interest. Omar Daf, the Sochaux coach, intends to rely on his nugget to try to raise the Doubistes in Ligue 1. A similar goal for Amine Adli, 21 years old. Dazzling the year before, he failed a blast of promotion. His speed and technical ease make him a special player, capable of making huge differences in a match.

Toulouse storming the climb

The Toulousains were one small goal away from returning to Ligue 1, only a year after leaving it. Third in Ligue 2 last year, they had to play a dam against the 18th in L1, FC Nantes. Beaten 2-1 at home at the Stadium on the first leg, their 1-0 victory at La Beaujoire was not enough to promote the Violets. Despite a high quality workforce for Ligue 2, the TFC has not been able to bounce back to find the upper echelon. With relatively few changes in its group, Toulouse is once again the favorite for the climb. Even more so if the Toulousans manage to keep this summer the nugget Amine Adli, voted best player in the championship last year. A decisive factor for the climb. Philippe Montanier arrived on the bench in place of Patrice Garande, bringing with him theexperience of this kind of issue.

The AJA of Furlan, a beautiful game on the menu?

Sometimes by wanting to play well, we expose ourselves to criticism. But never mind for Jean-Marc Furlan. The Auxerrois coach missed the play-off place with a missed penalty near last season. He particularly stood out in his approach to good play, in a championship where physical rigor often takes precedence over tactical and technical qualities. His team lost only one game more than the Trojan champion, but had many more draws (14v8). A difficulty in taking the three points which prevented the Icaunais from really getting involved in the fight for the climb. Furlan, with ambitious ideas, will be able to rely on an almost unchanged group even if he must have seen the departure of Mickaël Le Bihan for the Dijon neighbor with a negative eye. AJA will undoubtedly be theone of the teams to see play this season.

The return of the public to the stadiums, finally

After more than a year in empty stadiums or almost, Ligue 2, like L1, will find public.

Jean Castex, the Prime Minister, with the help of the sanitary pass, even wants to abolish the gauges in the stands as he told

L'Équipe

a few days ago.

“

The consultations that we carry out in the sports world show a good understanding of the health pass.

It is clear that this is the path that we prefer over that of closure.

If everyone in the stadium has their pass, there is no reason that we cannot watch sports

”.

A return to the height of that of Bastia.