Chance for Glory - Nancy vs Lyon

By: Nate | September 25th, 2008

Nancy supporters

There has been a bit of news this week regarding our boys in Nancy so lets start from the top.

1. Nancy succeeds in a preliminary test in this early season, by beating Grenoble in the Coupe de la Ligue. This comes as good news, seeing that most of the Ligue Un clubs embarrassingly lost these tilts, albeit with reduced or weakened squads.

2. This Saturday Nancy will travel to Lyon to face the giants of Ligue Un. To many in the league, this is probably a fixture circled right after the schedule came out. Getting 3 points against Lyon at home would be a great result for any team and it is for this reason that I believe Nancy should fight strong and not assume that a draw is a “great” result, as what happens so often when the weaker meet the stronger.

There are some bits of news that shed a glimmer of hope. Obviously François Clerc is still injured and I’ve heard late news that Juninho may not be able to punish us with a free kick goal due to his absence from the match. But Lyon is so deep that I wouldn’t expect this news to change how Lyon, or Nancy for that matter, will look at how to approach the game.

3. With our 13th position in the table, Nancy president Jacques Rousselot has issued a statement to supporters asking for patience this season. He acknowledged the departure of Puygrenier and Kim have hurt the team to a certain extent, but that the heart and soul of the team is largely unchanged since regaining Ligue Un status in 2005. Also, he mentioned that Nancy tried to find players to boost the roster in France and the rest of Europe, but those searched came up fruitless so far. Basically, to sum up the one page memo, give the youngsters a chance to adjust and improve and Nancy will be in the top 10. At least that’s my read. Il faut juste laisser un peu de temps au temps…

So that’s the news this week…This weekend is a great opportunity and I’d much rather see us try to go for the full three points rather than try and settle for the draw. In any case, Allez Nancy!