AUXERRE: Ligue 1’s Switzerland

By: Sam | July 11th, 2007

As the start of the season looms, it’s time for the France Offside to give you an in-depth look at each of the 20 teams vying for Hexagoal. Today, we meet AJ Auxerre, the team that no one loves and no one hates (fact).

The team: A lot of changes have been brought to this team since the end of last season, where they finished a respectable eighth. Names such as Toifilou Maoulida (Marseille), Marcos Antonio (Gil Vicente, POR), and Gabriel Tamas (Spartak Moskva, RUS) have been added to the roster, but they’ve lost even more, such as longtime keeper Fabien Cool, who’s retired, Younes Kaboul off to Spurs, Bakary Sagna also gone to London with Arsenal, and Benoît Cheyrou going to Marseille.

They’ll rely on semi-experienced Olivier Sorin between the pipes, and an experienced backline that boasts Jean-Sébastien Jaurès, Stéphane Grichting and Jean-Pascal Mignot. Their midfield is also strong, with the likes of Benoît Pedretti, Frédéric Thomas, the young and exciting Thomas Kalenberg, as well as their top goal scorer from last season, the Pole Ireneusz Jelen. They’re strong up front as well, with three very good strikers in Maoulida, Daniel Niculae, and one of the best Ligue 2 players of this decade, Jean-Michel Lesage.

Know what? I didn’t even realize they had such a stacked team until I wrote that last paragraph. For a team that’s lost a bunch of their best players, they’ve certainly got a deep roster.

The coach: Jean Fernandez, a well-respected coach that’s been travelling the world since 1984 working his trade, notable at Cannes in the eighties with some guy named Zidane. Spent a few years in the Middle East, but has been back in France since the early years of the third millenium, teaching at Sochaux, Metz, Marseille, and Auxerre since last summer. Has a reputation for getting underachievers achieving their potential. One of the best in the country.

The stadium: Stade de l’Abbé-Deschamps is a nice, quaint medium-sized fort in the middle of the country, seating 23,000 fans. No riots, no excessive fan behavious to speak of in the past few years, but like I said, everyone respects Auxerre, its fans and its stadium without thinking twice about it.

The final say: They’ve got a real strong team, I’m telling you. A lot of it is new, however, and we know it takes time to gel. Expect them to finish in the top 10, but not high enough to nab a Europe spot.