The French Ligue 1 will be welcoming a whole lot of new fans for this upcoming season, and although most of them won’t actually be watching any games that don’t involve PSG or Lionel Messi, this guide will still come in handy!
We’ve decided to highlight the top four clubs from the last Ligue 1 season and point out who might be this season’s surprise. We’ve teamed up with writer and football expert Kate Richardson, who’s provided us a massive help in coming up with this article, providing precise and key information.
We’ve picked five Ligue 1 clubs and these were the criterium:
- Last season’s Top four clubs
- Possible Surprise of the season
- Signings
So, before we get into the actual content, let’s do a quick recap of the last season in the League 1:
Contents
Quick Recap
Last season in France, Lille underwent an underdog season in order to claim their fourth Ligue 1 title in their history, after ten years beating super favorite Paris Saint-Germain led by Neymar and Mbappe.
Completing the European leagues zone we had Monaco going to the preliminary phases of the UEFA Champions League, Lyon and Marseille heading to the Europa League and Rennes going to the Conference League.
Paris Saint-Germain En route to make history
This could be a historic season for Paris Saint-Germain, who is looking for their tenth French title to level with Saint-Étienne as for the biggest winner in the competition’s history.
In addition, the team led by Mauricio Pochettino can win the eighth Ligue 1 trophy in the past 20 years, passing Lyon’s historic team with 7. The icing on the cake is the signing of Lionel Messi. However, we cannot diminish the other big names that were signed alongside Messi, with Ramos and Donnarumma being just one of the few to mention.
It feels like PSG are not only favourites to win it all in France, but in Europe as well.
Lille will have redoubled work
In order to defend their title and reach the back-to-back title, Lille will have to know how to use and rotate their squad well, as they will also share the spotlight with the UEFA Champions League.
To make things a little bit more complicated, to say the least, they’ll have to adapt to the style of new coach Jocelyn Gourvennec. The victory of the French Super Cup against PSG was already an encouraging start for the new manager, though, who will have the great challenge of keeping his stars before the window closes.
In attack, the standouts are the experienced Turkish Burak Yilmaz and the young Canadian star Jonathan David, who had direct participation in more than 50% of the goals of the victorious campaign of Lille last season. In midfield, Portuguese Renato Sanches was reborn from the ashes after many considered him a flop and is one of those speculated to leave the club soon.
On the defensive side, 20-year-old Dutch defender Sven Botman has had such a good season that it’s speculated on in Premier League teams.
Lyon wants to know what it’s like to be champion again
Lyon is a curious case of Ligue 1. After winning their first league title, they bagged the league for 7 years in a row, but can’t make it to the very top ever since 2008, which given the scenario, feels like an eternity.
Trying to end this 13-year hiatus and recover from a last season where' they fought at the top, but still didn’t qualify for the Champions League, Lyon seeks to be champion again with its Brazilian legion formed by the club’s director/legend Juninho and the five Brazilians in the squad.
The issue that could force Lyon to change plans would be the harassment of clubs from other leagues on their players, as was the case with Depay who departed to Barcelona and Brazilian Bruno Guimaraes, who sees every day speculation arise that he would be leaving the club in this European summer window.
Monaco’s best hopes are on a deadly trio
The trio formed by Russian midfielder Aleksandr Golovin, forwards Kevin Volland and Ben Yedder are Monaco’s best hopes in order to surprise PSG this season and improve from their last season’s third place finish.
Speaking of it, this trio had direct participation in no less than 64 of Monaco’s 76 goals last season 2020/2021, which are unbelievable stats. We can expect something else from this team should they repeat this performance.
Nice Set to Become Ligue 1’s Surprise
Last season’s ninth-place finish has got Nice what it takes to make a great Ligue 1 this season. The first reason for such optimism is that they’ve signed the current champion manager Christophe Galtier.
In addition, two young Dutch strikers, Calvin Stengs and Justin Kluivert, arrived to give a boost to the attack that already has the Danish highlight of the Euros, Kasper Dolberg. On the back, the security and experience of Brazilian captain Dante gives the team the solidity it needs.
Bet on the Ligue 1 Champion!
The scenario is up, and taking the aforementioned information into account, we can perhaps say that PSG are the most favourite club to win the Ligue 1 this season. You can bet on that in order to win some quid.
The French championship is the fifth strongest and most popular national championship in Europe. It is behind English, Spanish, Italian and German championships in world popularity.
Ligue 1 is a very good platform to try out and nurture young talent. The French national team won the World Cup in 2018, and this is primarily due to the academies of French clubs and the Ligue 1, where' they got the necessary development before they moved to stronger championships. Or to PSG.
Conclusion
After all that we’ve seen throughout this text, although we can’t for sure predict the winners of the season, we can for sure say that there will be some special games for sure.
Do you agree with our list? Would you remove some clubs, add another ones?
Let us know in the comments!