LE MANS: Bad Shirts, Good Hearts

By: Sam | July 14th, 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 Le Mans UC 72, the team that can’t be taken seriously because they either look like Ronald McDonald or one of those gross five-cent candies.

The team: Like a good deal of teams in the country, MUC lost more big-time players than they acquired. To put it simply, gone is their captain, Laurent Bonnart who went to Marseille, and their best player, striker Ismael Bangoura, who opted for the Champions League thing with Dinamo Kiev. James Fanchone, a semi-regular striker, signed with Strasbourg. The only real addition is that of Gervinho, an Ivoirian striker from Beveren (BEL).

One thing they know they’ve got nailed down is the goalkeeper position. Yohann Pelé, one of the best keepers of the last two seasons, is becoming a fan favourite all around the country and is expected to crack the national team lineup perhaps even this year. The defence, however, is just not good. Serbian Marko Basa is the leader of the group, as he is the best defender and assistant captain of the team. The rest of the backline corps is not impressive, with but a few somewhat known names like Grégory Cerdan, Ibrahima Camara and Jean Calvé. The midfield is better, somewhat inexperienced in Ligue 1, as no player has 100 games played in the league. But Romaric, Daisuke Matsui and Stéphane Sessegnon are perhaps the three that will do the most damage. They’ve got three quality strikers, however, to compliment the attacking mindset of the midfield. Brazilians Grafite and Tulio De Melo along with French youth international Mamadou Samassa provide a goalscoring danger all the time.

Basically, it gets better as you go up the field, but all in all this is not a very good team for the moment. They still have time to recruit, and they should get a move on fast.

The coach: Le Mans were not spared in the great merry-go-round of coaching changes this summer, with their man Freddy Hantz going to Sochaux. The staff wasted no time finding a replacement, that of Rudi Garcia, formerly of Dijon (Ligue 2). He missed out on promotion by a hair a few times, and also coached Saint-Étienne a few years back. Hantz is perhaps one of the best in the league, but Garcia will fill the gap nicely.

The stadium: The Stade Léon-Bollée is smaller than most at 16 000, but Le Mans’ supporters are something to behold. Allez Le Mans, Fanatic’s, firms are an important part of this club. Again, it’s not San Siro, but for the size of the city and the stadium, you gotta have respect.

The final say: Doesn’t look very good. I wouldn’t call them for relegation, but it’ll be damn close. It’ll be no surprise if they do however. Nothing over 15th place.

Personal note: I’m going camping for four days starting today, so I’ll be back on Wednesday to blog up a storm.