| OLYMPIQUE LYON (2001-02: First place) |
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Olympique Lyon are buoyant after winning their first league title last season and they want to become the first club to make it a double in the French league since Olympique Marseille in 1992.
Coach Jacques Santini
became France national coach and has been replaced by Paul Le
Guen.
With a budget increased
by 23 percent to 101 million euros ($99.31 million), Lyon have
concentrated on keeping their senior players including central defender
Edmilson who won the World Cup with Brazil, fellow Brazilian Sonny
Anderson, top scorer in last season's French league, and Gregory Coupet,
France's third goalkeeper at the World Cup. |
| LENS (Second) |
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| After losing the title to Lyon on the final day, Lens are out for revenge but they will have to do without Senegalese striker El-Hadji Diouf sold to Liverpool for 10 million pounds ($15.63 million).
Coach Joel Muller nevertheless stuck to his policy of buying African players because "they are a lot cheaper than French or European players." "We shall start the season with seven
Africans and I hope to sign another one," he said. |
| AJ AUXERRE (Third) |
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| After being in the race for the title, AJ Auxerre and their charismatic coach Guy Roux had to content themselves with qualification for the Champions League preliminary round.
Roux was as parsimonious as ever on the transfer market. He managed to keep striker Djibril Cisse, who became the youngest player in half a century to top the French league scoring table,
level with Portugal's Pedro Pauleta. At 20, Cisse was also the youngest player in France's World Cup squad.
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| PARIS ST GERMAIN (Fourth) |
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| PSG are without a league title since 1994 and they failed to qualify for the Champions League. The pressure is on coach Luis
Fernandez to deliver this season.
Brazil's Ronaldinho will be his star player. But PSG are in financial turmoil as their owners, the pay-TV group Canal Plus, have put them up for sale. |
| LILLE (Fifth) |
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| Lille have changed everything, coach, chairman and senior players.
Succeeding Bosnian-born Vahid Halilhodzic who, in four years, guided the club from second division to a Champions League first-round victory over Manchester United, will not be
an easy task for new coach Claude Puel.
The departure of four senior players, Bruno Cheyrou (to Liverpool), Pascal Cygan (Arsenal), Johnny Ecker (Marseille) and Dagui Bakari (Lens) will not help him. |
| GIRONDINS BORDEAUX (Sixth) |
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| Despite having Pedro Pauleta, who was voted French player of the season and topped the league scoring table with Djibril Cisse, Bordeaux were never in the title race last season but won the League Cup.
Their firepower will be increased by the arrival of Jean-Claude Darcheville who scored 19 goals last season with Lorient and was second only to Pauleta and Cisse. |
| TROYES (Seventh) |
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| Troyes have lost their emblematic coach Alain Perrin, who steered them back to the first division in 1999 and to qualification for the UEFA Intertoto Cup last season.
Perrin left to succeed Bernard Tapie as Olympique Marseille sports director. He was replaced by Jacky Bonnevay who had been coaching second division Beauvais since 1999. |
| SOCHAUX (Eighth) |
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| Sochaux surprised themselves last season when they finished eighth in the league just after winning promotion but they know
the hardest part is to come.
"The second season in the top flight is often more difficult than the first one," sports director Bernard Genghini says.
With a budget of 22.8 million euros, Sochaux could not spend much but they attracted the highly-respected En Avant Guingamp coach Guy Lacombe. |
| OLYMPIQUE MARSEILLE (Ninth) |
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| For once Olympique Marseille were quiet on the transfer front. Maybe because Bernard Tapie has left and was replaced by the much quieter Alain Perrin, maybe because they are under financial control and banned from recruiting unless they sell
excess players.
"We have to reduce our wage bill by 35 percent," said the club's chief Christophe Bouchet.
The cost-cutting exercise started with the departure of Brazilian midfielder Andre Luiz Moreira and Spanish international striker Alfonso who were on loan from Tenerife and Barcelona. |
| NANTES (10th) |
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| Nantes, the 2001 champions, had a terrible season and had to wait until the end of October for their first victory.
The first consequence was a fall in season tickets sales from 23,500 last season to 19,000 at the same time this year and a budget reduced by 30 percent from 90 to 65 million euros.
"We wanted to reduce our wage bill but we couldn't sell our more expensive players so we decided not to buy," said chairman Jean-Luc Gripond. |
| BASTIA (11th) |
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| Former Marseille and Bordeaux coach Gerard Gili came out of semi-retirement to coach Bastia. He adopted the Corsican tourist board's maxim: "Come and rejuvenate yourself under the Corsican sun."
He took with him two players in search of a new lease of life, striker Florian Maurice, signed from Marseille, and midfielder Jocelyn Gourvennec, who wanted to leave Stade Rennes. |
| STADE RENNES (12th) |
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| At the end of last season, business mogul Francois Pinault became tired of financing Stade Rennes with no results and sacked the chairman, sports director and coach.
Philippe Bergeroo, who was coaching the goalkeepers when France won the World Cup in 1998 and went on to manage Paris St Germain, is now in charge of the team.
His first statement was to say that "it is often difficult to go straight from the cellar to the loft." His main signing was the 20-year-old Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech from Sparta Prague at a cost of 5 million euros. |
| MONTPELLIER (13th) |
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| Montpellier escaped relegation last season thanks to a bunch of young players led by Aliou Cisse.
The young players are still there but Senegal's World Cup captain, who was on loan from
Paris St Germain, rejoined PSG only to be sold to Premier League side Birmingham City. |
| MONACO (14th) |
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| Didier Deschamps, the 1998 World Cup-winning captain, knows that he will be in a win-or-be-sacked situation from the
beginning of the season after failing to lift a trophy or qualify for Europe.
But Deschamps's first priority will be to reduce the squad of 35 players, including too many expensive names such as German striker Oliver Bierhof, Argentine midfielder Macelo Gallardo and
Italian defender Christian Panucci.
For the first time in many years, chairman Jean-Louis Campora did not say he wanted his team to win everything. "Our goal is to play well again," he said. |
| SEDAN (15th) |
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| As with several French clubs, the Wild Boars of the Ardennes will rely on Senegalese internationals.
Henri Camara and Moussa N'Diaye will stay on although Salif Diao is expected to join
Liverpool before the end of the season. |
| EN AVANT GUINGAMP (16th) |
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| Guingamp just escaped relegation last year and their coach Guy Lacombe, tired of having to work on a shoestring budget, left for Sochaux. He has been replaced by Bertrand Marchand who was assistant coach with Stade Rennes.
"A club cannot play second fiddle for ever," he said. "I know we have to be modest but I want us to reach excellence in modesty as AJ Auxerre did under Guy Roux." |
| LE HAVRE (Promoted) |
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| Founded in 1872, Le Havre are the oldest club in French football. Their soccer school is highly respected and they have a special relationship with English Premier League side Liverpool.
Thanks to promotion, two of the players who won the under-18 World Cup with France, Anthony Le Tallec and Florent Sinama-Pongole, will discover top-level club football before
moving on to Liverpool next year. |
| STRASBOURG (Promoted) |
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| After a year in the second division Strasbourg do not want to yo-yo up and down.
Their fate could be sealed very quickly as they will play their first three games against the three other promoted teams, Ajaccio, Le Havre and Nice. |
| NICE (Promoted) |
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| After winning promotion, Nice were demoted to the third division on financial grounds before their right to play in the top flight was restored on July 19, barely two weeks before their first championship game.
But new coach Gernot Rohr says: "The players went through a very difficult time but now I feel they are ready to face everything with an absolute serenity." |
| AJACCIO (Promoted) |
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| After 29 years in the wilderness, Ajaccio will have to survive on the smallest budget of any first division side.
They will also start the new season without a coach as Rolland Courbis has been banned from soccer by magistrates investigating a case of alleged fraud involving transfers when
he was coaching Olympique Marseille between 1997-99. |
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