What will change for Clermont Foot’s second season in Ligue 1

There is always a temple guardian in a squad, but at CF63 the keys are particularly well guarded.

Some players have experienced everything together, from the anonymity of Ligue 2 to the rise in Ligue 1, through a momentum cut by the Covid and, finally, the trying learning of the highest level.

We could see the end of a cycle there, between the age of certain elements and the idea that a lease of three or four years for the oldest is already long in modern football where we skip more quickly. Jérôme Phojo will leave after five years. Florent Ogier, Vital Nsimba, Johan Gastien have been there since 2018. They arrived just before Jason Berthomier, Jim Allevinah, Akim Zedadka or Cédric Hountondji (2019), while Yohann Magnin and Mohamed Bayo were completing their training.

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They are not all going to leave, but we can understand that a good half of these names, sometimes at the end of the contract, have desires elsewhere. For Clermont, and for a coach anxious to raise the mayonnaise quickly, this will be a first challenge.

2. Second year, other dynamics

When he goes up, a promoted often surfs on the dynamics of the previous season. And it’s not just in Ligue 1, even if it’s not always a guarantee of success.

Not everything was rosy, but Troyes and Clermont, like Lorient and Lens just before them, like Metz and Brest with the Covid, or like Reims and Nîmes in 2018, will go on for a second season in a row in the football elite. French.

Less euphoric but also less taken lightly and better known by his peers, the promoted, often deprived of the best performing elements of the first year, creates less surprise the following year.

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For the CF63, it’s (almost) good, since the Auvergne club did not do it for long during its first season. And as he succeeded with the myth of the 42 points necessary for maintenance, he will have the opportunity to debunk another received idea, already abused by the statistics. Of the 56 teams promoted since Ligue 1 replayed at 20 in 2001, only 6 have come back down at the end of their second season (and 14 after a single season).

3. Ligue 2 for four clubs

Unlike Saturday night against OL, it is important not to lose a place in the standings on the last day and finish the season in 17th place, at the start of June 2023.

premium The Gabriel-Montpied stadium under construction for Clermont Foot’s second season in Ligue 1

With the passage of Ligue 1 to 18 clubs from the following year, in 2023-2024, it will be necessary at worst to finish 16th, since the last four positions will lead its occupants to the lower level. And due to an already tight schedule with a World Cup in the middle, there will be no play-offs to give the 17th-placed a second chance to pull through.

Suffice to say that the places will be even more expensive in a Ligue 1 which has decided to close its ranks, after more than twenty years spent at twenty clubs.

4. A new calendar

With a World Cup at the end of autumn, the 2022-2023 season will have a completely new schedule.

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After a classic resumption, at the beginning of August, Ligue 1 will press a break after the 15th day, in mid-November, for an interruption of a month and a half. To make up for this delay, the LFP will test a “Boxing Day” during the end-of-year celebrations, with two days of L1, Wednesday December 28 and Sunday January 1.

Rather than multiplying the matches during the week, the L1 will stretch until the beginning of June, two weeks longer than the norm. For the clubs, these new cadences will particularly challenge physical preparation. Clermont should do it again in November, including an internship in Spain and several friendly matches.