Has the French League ever been so exciting? Time and again the Ligue 1 title is overlooked in Europe as if the league has always been a level down from the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A. But in recent years and with money being injected, investments in stadiums Ligue 1 has stepped up its game and continues to do so.
Of course the recent domination of PSG, who have won 4 league titles in a row threatened to turn Ligue 1 into at worst a farce at best lopsided, but this season other teams have shown a determination not seen before and with just over a month to go of the season in France we have 3 teams who have a realistic chance to win the title.
First up is Monaco who because of their fantastic Champions League campaign have made ripples all over the world. Monaco have been a breath of fresh air showing incredible consistency in order to stop PSG’s winning run.
Monaco have been leading the league for months and the quality of players at their disposal is staggering. Kylian Mbappe up front has been in brilliant form and caught the eyes of Europe’s biggest clubs. He is already at just 18 years old establishing himself as the next Thierry Henry. But Monaco don’t just rely on one player for goals. Guido Carillio, Radamel Falcao, Valere Germain are all adept at bagging goals. Even midfielders and defenders have got into the action with players such as Bernardo Silva, Kamil Glik, Thomas Lemar and Fabinho also adding to the goal tally. Monaco currently has a 3 point advantage over PSG and have one foot in the semi finals of the Champions League after beating Germans Borussia Dortmund 3-2 away.
PSG by their standards have had a testing time this season in Ligue 1. Finally they have had to deal with genuine challengers and that hasn’t been able to adapt to especially given that this season they introduced a new manager in Unai Emery. The champions looked almost lethargic in the opening exchanges in the title campaign. However they have really been on their game since Christmas and their consistency is a big reason they are still within one win of catching Monaco.
Nice are the real surprise package of the team and so is Mario Balotelli. The volatile striker was happily off loaded by Liverpool last summer and Nice snapped the Italian up. But Balotelli seems to have found his perfect match and has had an outstanding season in the south of France.
Nice led the way for many months before Monaco took the lead and a loss and a draw followed by another draw and Nice looked doomed to slip down the table. But the club have not read the script and they soon got back on track and got a run of wins together. It means that they have hung on in there and are just four points behind Monaco. Any dropped points from the top two clubs would let in Nice. However the only disadvantage that they have is that they have played a game more than both Monaco and PSG.
It’s safe to say that this years Ligue 1 title showdown is set to go down to the very last game of the season. Considering that the title was in theory wrapped up by Christmas last season, this is a huge step in the right direction for a league that is much more competitive than was once thought.
Play European Fantasy Football against your friends and colleagues, sign up now with Eurofantasyleague.com
Manage your favourite Premier League players at www.fantasy-premier.com
To leave a comment, you must be logged into www.eurofantasyleague.com