Matchday 9: Only in France

By: Sam | September 26th, 2007

Only in France does a team sport their opponents’ shirts to play a match. Only in France does a player score a header that looks like an homage to the Gateway to the West. Only in France does a single player have two goals disallowed in the space of two minutes. And get this: Karim Benzema didn’t score! Odd. By the way, I apologize for the lateness of this post, as you may know I’m a busy little high school student and a lazy one at that. If you don’t like it, go suck a lemon. Just kidding. I love my readers! Here are les recappes (that’s not a word, by the way).

(1) Nancy 2-0 Lorient (10)
Once again, I ask you: Why are Nancy so good? If there was one team you could pick to be on top of the table with a match in hand, the club currently holding that title don’t really spring to mind. What’s more, it didn’t seem like the northeastern side would be claiming their sixth victory from eight games until the last little bit, but we’ll get to that later. The first half belonged to the keepers, Audard and Bracigliano, who made key saves, and the latter was lucky when Namouchi hit the post going into the break. And when the trend continued all the way into minute eighty, Youssouf Hadji took matters into his own hands and crashed a tricky header into the back of the net for his third of the season. Mere minutes later, Hadji and added the fourth on another header. Two-nil! Nancy, with six wins, a draw and a loss, have 19 points, one more than Bordeaux, who are in second place.

(3) Valenciennes 1-0 Monaco (8)
Valenciennes continue to do well, yet no one knows why. Up until two matches ago we were saying the same thing about Monaco, but now there second straight defeat is raising more questions than answers. The only goal of the match came relatively early, with Johan Audel scoring a beautiful long-range header for his fifth of the season. And after a very good end to the first half, Monaco’s Jérémy Menez was sent off for a very sloppy tackle. Even then, it was ASM who provided the most opportunities in the second half, and even got two VA players sent off, Mater and Rippert, in the last minutes. Still, no cigar. Valenciennes now sit on the podium, all cute and proud.

(9) Strasbourg 0-1 Le Mans (5)
Before the season started, this would have been pegged as The Boring Match, but these two surprising sides brought their A-game for this upper-table clash at La Meinau. After beind dominated most of the first half, Le Mans went ahead ten minutes from the break with Romaric’s free-kick from way out, which Cassard misjudged horribly. Strasbourg pushed even harder, getting nearer and nearer figuring out Pelé,

(13) PSG 0-2 Bordeaux (2)
Before this match, both sides hadn’t lost in five matches, but one had not lost on the road and the other had not won at home, and they were separated by six spots in the table. Go figure. Well, as you may have guessed, it was PSG who weren’t doing too well at home, and the start of the match didn’t change their fortunes. Former international Johan Micoud beat the offside trap on ten minutes and finished past Landreau to give Bordeaux the lead. PSG had some chances before half-time, but we had to wait until early in the second frame to see the second goal, and it came from David Bellion, who finished easily after a good run and service from Jussié. Pauleta hit the bar in the dying moments, but nothing could prevent PSG from falling for the fifth time in as many matches at the Parc.

(4) Lyon 1-1 Lille (14)
Lille have been Lyon’s bête noire in the past few years, and this encounter at Gerland didn’t change much. Alain Perrin, on the hot seat at this moment, lined up Bodmer and Keita against their former side. After a scintillating first fifteen minutes, Michel Bastos gave Lille the lead on a monster strike. And after another forty minutes of brilliant football, Sidney Govou levelled for Lyon, after pwning Tafforeau right proper. Afterwards, Lyon had chance after chance to take the match, but instead found frustration and two disallowed goals by Milan Baros, two minutes apart (one for offside, one for a Hand of God). That would be that, though, and Lyon were banging their heads against the wall for not scoring more than one goal out of the roughly seventy-four chances they had. Well, at least it was better than against Barcelona.

(7) Nice 3-0 Saint-Étienne (11)
Les Aiglons, quiet but effective up to this point, took their home battle against Saint-Étienne to show everyone they rocked the casbah. They started the rout seven minutes in through Bakary Koné’s ridiculous header that took Janot completely by surprise. Koné added a second tally ten minutes later on a good service from Laslandes. With les Verts creating chance after chance, Dabo had a goal disallowed because three of his mates were bothering Letizi in offside positions. A former vert, David Hellebuyck added the third ten minutes from time, on a well hit-strike that he took with no one marking him twenty-five yards from goal, dead center. Tsk tsk. Nice even had a penalty saved by Janot just before injury time. Yikes.

(6) Rennes 0-2 Sochaux (17)
Pity, pity. After having such a great run since getting Sylvain Wiltord, le Stade have to live with the fact that they handed the floundering Sochaux their first win of the season, at home. On 37 minutes, totally against the run of play, Stéphane Dalmat scored for Sochaux on a sweet, well-hit volley. With Rennes having lost at least part of their feistiness, it was the one who supplied the cross on the first goal, http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31s8j_rennes-sochaux-isabey_sport, who got the second, thanks to sloppy defending by the home side. Sylvain Wiltord scored in the last minutes (wait– no. Offside.), and Sochaux climbed out of the red zone with seven points, just behind Marseille.

(11) Toulouse 1-1 Lens (18)
Our new pal Jay, inaugral blogger for our seventh sub-cult of France Offside, had to settle for a draw for his side’s first Offside-ized match. And though his team didn’t have the monopoly of chances or anything of the sort, it was quite an entertaining draw. Bryan Bergougnoux opened hostilities for the home crowd on 24 minutes on a smart pass from Emana that left Runje with no chance. Forget that goal, though: Ten minutes later, Lens equalized on a volley nothing short of stunning from Olivier Monterrubio, connecting with a bad clearance outside the area while in a horizontal position. And with Mangané getting a red card midway through the second half, it took some persistency and a fabulous save from Runje to keep the two teams tied. This doesn’t really help either side, with Lens in the relegation zone and Toulouse still looking for their kickstart.

(15) Auxerre 2-0 Marseille (16)
First off- If you saw any sort of highlight or photo from this match, you probably wondered, why the hell are OM sporting Auxerre’s pink-and-brown away shirts? Well, it turns out Stephen Hawking’s not on their equimpent staff, and they forgot to bring shirts that weren’t unlike Auxerre’s. So there. Pink and brown. Turns out they weren’t good luck charms either. Romanian Daniel Niculae punished the visitors for their slack defending and beat Mandanda 19 minutes in. The same Niculae added his second five minutes later when he stepped in front of a Lejeune cross. Faty would almost break the crossbar in half five minutes afterwards, and Lejeune did his best to help Marseille out by getting sent off midway through the second half, but nothing stopped them from failing to win for the eighth time this season. Vhat is going on?

(20) Caen 1-2 Metz (19)
The battle of the loozahs! Sorry Chris. Don’t you love it when the two bottom teams play each other? A bad week for Caen, who’ve lost Gouffran to PSG, and also handed Metz their first win of the season. It all started good for them though, as Yoan Gouffran made a great run and finished nicely within the first ten minutes. It was all downhill from there, though, as Momar N’Diaye got away from his marker and beat Planté on 38 minutes. And Swiss international Daniel Gygax put the then-winless Messins up when he lobbed Planté after a good counter. The sides swap places in the table now, and yeah… Caen aren’t particularly happy, I don’t think.