Saint-Étienne: The Failure Of Another Giant Of French Football

June 21, 2022, by Jake Woodward

Failure Of Another Giant Of French Football - Saint-Étienne

The 2021-22 French Ligue 1 season was full of surprises. However, most were bad, starting with the PSG's performance. Despite winning the championship, they were never the powerful club it was supposed to be with the arrival of Leo Messi. It is as if Messi had not even played for the club. Additionally, it was an irregular season for teams like Marseille and Monaco and a bad season for teams like Lyon. But, it was a nightmare for one of the teams with the longest winning tradition in France: Saint-Étienne. This club and Paris Saint-Germain are tied for the number of titles won in Ligue 1 (10 each). Therefore, Saint-Étienne's nightmare has become a chaotic reality. Starting next season, they will have to play in the second division (Ligue 2) after being relegated from Ligue 1 after 18 consecutive years in the elite of French football.

Saint-Étienne Current Season

This season, there was not a single positive aspect for the team led by Pascal Dupraz. They finished in position 18 in the table, just 1 point above the teams that occupied positions 19 and 20. Saint-Étienne could only win seven matches and allowed 77 goals against (second-worst mark in the league), and did not have a single moment in the season with a winning streak. This is something worthy of a tragedy for the directors and fans of a club as important as Saint-Étienne.

The Association Sportive of Saint-Étienne was founded in June 1933 and experienced a golden age from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Financial crises and poor choices in player signings led to the club's downfall. And this is a team in which many famous players, such as the Cameroonian Roger Milla, have participated. The club has participated in the European Cup and the Champions League. Likewise, it has had a very consistent fan base during its history. But, problems and difficulties have always arisen in the management field. But this season, everything went from bad to worse. The new signings this season did not predict higher expectations, and players like Thioub, Bernardoni, and Mangala did not provide any support to the team. Besides, coach Pascal Dupraz made some wrong decisions. This combination of failures brought together the bad luck of Saint-Étienne, who was never a rival of the other teams'.

And to top it off, there was a grave and embarrassing incident in the last match where they could fight to stay in Ligue 1 but lost on penalties against Auxerre (5-4). And what happened afterward ended up staining the team's dismal year: an outbreak of violence among the Saint-Étienne fans invaded the field of the Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium to fill the defeat and relegation of their team with violence. It was absolute chaos, as if all the season's frustration boiled down to a moment of collective anger, and fans felt the moment was unbearable. The spectacular fall of Saint-Étienne marks another low point in the recent history of French football, which it expects, and needs for the dismissal of its great teams.

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