Ligue 1 Review | Inexperienced Strasbourg sink in football’s ‘shark tank’ | OneFootball

“It’s kind of a symbol of our season,” Gary O’Neil fumed on Sunday evening after watching his RC Strasbourg Alsace side limp to a 1-1 draw with Angers SCO, their fourth game in a row without a win. “We can do so much better,” he continued, “I’m angry. I hope the players are, too. There are two games left, and they have to show me they’re good enough to play with us next year.”

It’s a familiar story for Strasbourg under BlueCo as a promising season has gone off the rails in the final stretch. Like last year, when Le Racing crashed out of the European race after losing their final two games of the season, rescued only by Paris Saint-Germain winning the Coupe de France and gifting them a place in the UEFA Europa Conference League, this season has seen hope dashed with the finishing line in sight. 

In late April, Strasbourg were knocked out of the cup by struggling OGC Nice. On Thursday, it was Rayo Vallecano’s turn to dump Strasbourg out of the Europa Conference League. And on Sunday, a chance to narrow the gap on AS Monaco and keep their faint prospects of securing European football, in the same manner as last season, was ended. 

Inexperience the foundation

“They disappointed me so much, even more than on Thursday,” O’Neil said of his charges. “Football is a shark tank, they need to realise that. I told them we were playing a cup final [against Angers] and we really didn’t play the way we should have.” At the centre of his disappointment is a familiar theme that has been found consistently in the criticism of the BlueCo project: this is a team built on a foundation of inexperience. 

Scouting, acquiring, and platforming young talent is the Raison d’être behind BlueCo’s acquisition of Strabsourg. The squad is filled with some of Europe’s most exciting talent, but it has come at the expense of having experienced figures in the dressing room to act as guides and mentors. Ben Chilwell and back-up keeper Karl-Johan Johnsson are the grizzled anomalies in an evergreen dressing room. 

It is a situation that has left leadership roles to players who have felt entirely unsuited to them. Emanuel Emegha’s captaincy has been the most emblematic of these failures, with the striker out of his depth as the team’s voice and diplomat. 

He’s spent most of the season out on the sidelines or frustrating the fanbase, either by signing a pre-contract agreement with Chelsea or by making misjudged comments, like when he told Dutch media he didn’t know where Strasbourg was before signing, saying, “I thought it was in Germany, but it turned out to be in France. Well, I think everyone knows Strasbourg now.” 

The big question for Strasbourg

What next for Strasbourg and these players is the big question that will be floating around the region until the transfer window opens. Without European football, how well will Le Racing be able to keep its young stars? There will be plenty of admirers for Valentén Barco, Samir El Mourabet, Martial Godo, Diego Moreira, Guela Doué, and Joaquin Panichelli. While the Chelsea loanees and Emegha will be gone. 

For O’Neil, the talent drain isn’t the only thing that concerns him. As he said on Sunday, “We also need to improve the club culture.” But how well can a club culture be built when the key selling point to prospective talent is that Le Racing is a giant shop window? How do you build something permanent and lasting when the nature of the project is so transitory? Can you get players to invest fully across an entire season, knowing that by the end of the campaign, they might be gone to pastures new? 

This week’s Ligue 1 sub-plots

GFFN | Nick Hartland