With the 2016/17 Ligue 1 season starting on Friday when Bastia meet Paris Saint-Germain and AS Monaco host Guingamp, Ian Hawkey looks at the storylines to watch this season in the French top flight:
Can anybody derail the Paris Saint-Germain juggernaut?
Since Paris Saint-Germain came under the financial umbrella of Qatari investors, the French championship has lost some its suspense. So says Olympique Lyonnais – OL – president, Jean-Michel Aulas, long and loud at every opportunity. It's not hard to see where he's coming from. PSG won all three major domestic trophies last term and their advantage over second-placed OL stood at 31 points as they cantered to their fourth successive Ligue 1 title.
But PSG have a new manager, Spaniard Unai Emery, a freshman to French football, and are no longer spearheaded by the larger-than-life Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Naturally, and as usual, they have spent more than any other French club on reinforcements in the transfer window, but it is on players with slightly less than 24-carat superstar cachet.
Emery will be a distinct sort of coach from his predecessor Laurent Blanc and in the early weeks of adjustment, others, like Lyon, Bordeaux and AS Monaco, may glimpse opportunities to take advantage. Still, it would be a surprise to see the championship end up away from the French capital.
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After Ibra, who’s the daddy?
Ibrahimovic dominated the French domestic landscape for four years. His shadow remains long.
He was Ligue 1’s top scorer last season, a period in which he reached his 34th birthday, and on the rare weekends when his goals were not setting the agenda for their quality and quantity, his quotes to the media often were. He arrived “as a king and left as a legend”. So Zlatan told us. At times his overbearing presence could be suffocating. He was icon not only of the soaraway leaders of French football but of Ligue 1 itself, a one-man endorsement of its status.
It's unlikely anybody will score the 156 goals over four years Ibrahimovic managed for PSG. But Edinson Cavani, the Uruguayan striker, will hope to display more regularly his finishing assets, now that he can play through the middle of PSG's attack, after some grumbles he was compromised playing alongside the towering Swede. PSG have brought Jese from Real Madrid, a young forward of high potential, too, while men like Alexandre Lacazette, of Lyon, will eye a chance of succeeding Ibrahimovic as Ligue 1's most reliable marksman.
Generation 87’s latest hurrah
It is a dozen years since France's youngsters won the European Under-17 title and announced a band of footballers, born in the mid-to-late 1980s, that would surely wow the world in the future. Their progress since has stuttered, to say the least: One, Karim Benzema, garlanded at Real Madrid, sees his international career in abeyance because of off-the-field controversies; Samir Nasri, of Manchester City, has had his ups and downs, as have Hatem Ben Arfa, who was unemployed 18 months ago, and Jeremy Menez, who has hopscotched across clubs in Italy and France.
Menez has joined Bordeaux from AC Milan, keen, as he approaches his 30th birthday, that the teenage hype around him really was justified. Ben Arfa, also 29, has had quite a renaissance since falling out with Newcastle United and then Hull City in England.
A brilliant season with Nice led PSG to sign the winger. Now Ben Arfa has the big stage to show France and Europe what he can do, that he can enchant crowds regularly, and with maturity.
What benefits from Euro 2016?
Ligue 1 kicks off barely over a month since Saint-Denis hosted the final of the European championship. Although France's Bleus fell short as losing finalists of the prize they desired, the country warmed to the national team in June and July, and to the largely positive ambience of the tournament. If the effect is anything like that of the 1998 World Cup, staged in France, had on the nation, crowds for domestic football should be up in the immediate aftermath.
There are new stadiums in Lyon, Nice, Bordeaux and Lille as a result of Euro 2016. A few of the players in Ligue 1 have an enhanced profile as a result of the tournament, though several of Euro 2016’s young stars have departed for richer leagues. Portugal’s Joao Moutinho at Monaco is now a European champion. And it will be instructive to see how opposition fans at Lille matches greet Eder: He scored the only goal of the Euro 2016 final, the goal that gave Portugal the title at France’s expense.
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