Ligue 1 Review | Youth springs eternal at new look Strasbourg | OneFootball

Youth is not simply a focus at RC Strasbourg Alsace; it is an obsession. And on Sunday, this obsession led to the club making history during their 1-0 derby win over FC Metz, as they became the first team in the top five European leagues to field a starting 11 comprised entirely of players born after the year 2000.

Since BlueCo took over Strasbourg in 2023, there has been a conscious effort to trim the squad, selling or allowing experienced talent (namely, players over the age of 23) to leave and replacing them with some of world football’s most promising prospects. This caused some friction within the club in the early days of the BlueCo era. Particularly when the owners put a block on a transfer for Davidson Sánchez during the 2023 summer transfer window.

BlueCo have made no secret of the fact that they consider Strasbourg to be a crucible where they can blood young talent in a competitive league. Nor have they hidden how the Ligue 1 side can act as a pathway into their sister club, Chelsea FC, or more widely into the Premier League, such as with Andrey Santos (who is now a part of the Chelsea squad) or Habib Diarra (who was sold to Sunderland).

Teething problems for young Strasbourg side

Even the staunchest critics of this model would struggle to deny that last season, the project looked coherent and was delivering results on the pitch. Notwithstanding a late-season collapse, which saw the club lose their last two games and almost fall out of contention for Europe, if not for a helping hand from Paris Saint-Germain (whose victory in the Coupe de France meant that Strasbourg were handed a spot in the UEFA Europa Conference League qualifiers).

However, coming into the opening game of the season, it felt as if Le Racing were once again starting from scratch, with 11 new faces (and four familiar) brought into the club as they tried to replace those that had been sold, or returned to their parent club, Chelsea. And this feeling bled onto the pitch, with the young squad looking worryingly toothless as they struggled to break down their regional rivals.

Strasbourg dominated the statistics, controlling possession and limiting Metz to only a couple of shots, none of which were on target. But it would take them until the 86th minute to finally find the back of the net, with summer signing Joaquín Panichelli finishing a rare incisive move against a team that looks destined to finish the season fighting in and around the relegation zone.

European qualification the aim

Perhaps this match will prove to be an aberration, but it should be noted that Strasbourg started last season slowly, winning only one of their first five games, and there is the chance that they could be faced with a similar situation with an extremely young and much changed squad needing to find their footing in the league before then demonstrating their full potential.

Head coach Liam Rosenior will certainly hope it’s the former rather than the latter, with the club set to play the first leg of their Europa Conference League qualifier against Brøndby on Thursday evening, before hosting a much re-energised FC Nantes on Sunday evening.

This week’s Ligue 1 subplots

GFFN | Nick Hartland