Anyone noticing how French teams are completely turning CL upside down?

Qualifying Stages

Suprise 1: Auxerre 6-3 agg Arsenal

Group Stages

Suprise 2&3$4

Group 2
Pos Team P W D L GF GA Pts
1 Auxerre France 6 3 2 1 14 13 11
2 Napoli Italy 6 2 3 1 14 13 9
3 Brest France 6 2 1 3 17 14 7
4 Getafe Spain 6 2 0 4 14 19 6

Auxerre wins the Group stage against giants like Napoli and Getafe and the ever present Brest

Group 4
Marsellie and Monaco win the group by eliminating the giants of A Madrid and Bayern

Quarterfinals

Surprises continue

Benfica Portugal x France Monaco 3 × 5
Napoli Italy x Germany Hertha BSC 0 × 0
Blackpool England x France Auxerre 3 × 2
Marseille France x Portugal Rio Ave 4 × 0

The Portuguese giants are thrashed and Auxerre stands a good chance to qualify vs Blackpool.

There’s the possibility for 3 French Teams to be in the Semis, hence one could already be in the final

Btw, France could jump to the second place in the country ranking (1st in Europe) next season :)

They probably will, the portuguese crew did very bad, I’m probably the worse… and now the others about to be eliminated…

Dhimitri you beat me to this post… i was thinking to post similar… was waiting to see how they would do in this round… the french are doing well in both CL and EL…
congratulations…

The funny thing is all three managers are of French of origins, so I’m guessing the boys are home now!!! lol

I know Fran and Patrick to be awesome managers so France will be the most exciting league for years to come

Nice nice!! This brings some extra excitement in Europe… Nice to see the forum getting alive more again!

On an intresting note, this is the 2nd time in 15 seasons I don’t get to the quaters :). I always make it there, except for this season. I’m very happy to see the french doing so well (without me :P). I don’t think you’ve seen the last of us!

Well, my team comprised mostly of veterans has made a fantastic run but all good things must come to an end. I certainly never expected to achieve this level of success. Believe it or not, my board wanted me to reach the group stage. Me and the “boys” (or men I should say) made the superiors proud… Hopefully Marseille can bring home France’s first CL cup!!!

Anyhow, I wish to thank Sylvain (Brest) and my twin brother Charles (Auxerre) for helping me out throughout the past 2 seasons. I wouldn’t be where I am without them…and a very special mention to Luc Blomme.

And regarding the language issues, as far as I know, Francois (Marseille), Martin (Grenoble, Ali (Nice), Charles (Auxerre), and Me (Monaco) all speak French fluently…

Last but not least, despite not getting to finals to play Marseille, I’m very happy and proud to see France gaining the number 1 spot in Europe in terms of UEFA points. I never thought we’d get there quickly since there was a 40 point spread with Spain last season. It’s amazing how things can change so quickly which is a lesson for all of us…never keep your guard down as there’s always another country gunning for the top place. Who knows, we may be the victims next season hehehe.

Bonne Chance Marseille!

Hi all :)

It’s done , I’m bringing the CL in France for the very first time ;)

Before anything , I would like to apologise to Alexander the manager of Napoli. I was not deserving to win and my GK Lebrun won the the game himself alone. Napoli should have clearly won this game.
I hope also that the goal that Scarone scored was not with the hand :p :p It’s not so popular at these times…

The board was asking me to reach the quarter final and maybe because I’m playing (352) a little differently than most of the people (442) I was lucky to succeed more. Lebrun saved my game but I chosed him a long time ago on FTL with some specifics skills in the purpose to play with my future tactic and it took me 7 seasons to have him ready. I would like by the way to thank Maria Alves in Porto who made the biggest part of the job.
That’s it, I suppose that it will take a very long time before I can do it again…
Finaly I would like to thank all the managers from the french league for the support and the advices. Some more specialy like Pat Cimetier from Monaco and Sylvain Dingenouts from Brest who if he was less unlucky would have already won the CL. There is a great community in this country and I hope it will go on like this.
Regards to all
Fran

Congratulations Franek…

Congratulations François, well deserved title, even the final I believe it was not that lucky… A 100 drible keeper has its advantages :D

About France as number 1 in Europe just one thing to say… WE’LL BE BACK :D

Congratulations François! Great managers also win matches when they aren’t dominating the match…

I don’t say that Alexander isn’t a great manager. He proved many time in Italy and Europe he also has the managerspirit. I experienced that many times when I was the manager of Genoa. :)

I noticed france collected 79 uefa points this season, which seems to be the highest since 5 seasons in all of europe :). Only brazil can’t be beat :)

It will be Portugal back to top in europe next season… ( unless they do very very bad..)

Watch this space…

Btw, Francois, don’t feel bad getting “lucky” vs Napoli. We all get our share of lucky and unlucky. Some more then others :). If Napoli didn’t have “his share of luck” in the group stage he would never have been 2nd in the group and he wouldn’t be in the quaters. Guess his “luck” just ran out and it was time for him to get “unlucky” :P

That’s right but it’s never pleasant to loose a game that you are dominating in most of all areas…
What is making me a little more proud is that I wonder if I’m not the first manager to have won both Libertadores and CL in this beta, am I ?
Anyway after being sacked for bad results ( ^^) from Cruzeiro, it tooked about 7/8 seasons to be competitive again in an another team completely rebuilt like Marseille which shows that every thing is possible in football and in Rubysoccer :p
Thank’s again to all for the congrats and so…

Congrats Fran, awesome achievement. I guess Alexander deserved better, but still happy France got it’s firs CL title :)

Congratz good job!