When a young Eden Hazard led Lille to Ligue 1 glory

France had their fourth different champion in as many years as Lille stormed to the title in an impressive second half of the season to finally see off the challenge of defending champions Marseille in 2010-11.

Rudi Garcia’s men – who also picked up the French Cup in a memorable double-winning campaign – thrived on an effective 4-3-3 formation led by Moussa Sow and Gervinho, with Eden Hazard enjoying a breakout season en route to a first league win in nearly six decades.

The old guard more or less remained there or thereabouts as Marseille, Lyon and PSG occupied the next three spots in the table. There was a surprise fifth place finish for Sochaux, while at the other end AS Monaco suffered relegation on the final day of the season – just seven years after making the Champions League final.

CHANGES

This was the last year before PSG began to dominate the domestic landscape, and thus they were largely absent from the big spenders list. Indeed, it was Marseille and Lyon who splashed the cash on account of consecutive appearances in the Champions League group stage. Lyon opted to snatch Yoann Gourcuff from Bordeaux in what was then regarded as the biggest intra-domestic transfer of modern times.

Marseille, meanwhile, on the back of a first league win in 17 years spent a combined 31 million euros on Andre-Pierre Gignac and Loic Remy, both of those players comfortably entering in the top five most expensive transfers in OM’s history. Mamadou Niang, the club’s captain and stalwart quit for Fenerbahce towards the end of the window.

After an impressive campaign, Asamoah Gyan swapped Rennes for Sunderland, while Marouane Chamakh and Laurent Koscielny were picked up by Arsene Wenger at Arsenal.

Curiously, there was only one managerial change to report in the off-season – Laurent Blanc left after taking Bordeaux to a Champions League quarter-final the year before, and promptly took over the job as France coach after the World Cup. He was replaced by Jean Tigana.

SEASON…

Source link : https://www.footballcritic.com/season-reviews/when-a-young-eden-hazard-led-lille-to-ligue-1-glory-ligue-1-in-2010-11/806

Author : [email protected] (Mohammed Ali)

Publish date : 2024-07-25 15:00:00

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