Ligue 2 relegation/promotion playoff: Villefranche- Chamois Niortais
May 19, 2021
Ligue 2 relegation/promotion playoff: VilleFranche- Chamois Niortais
This is going to be played over two legs, with the second game in Niort on Saturday evening.
Villefranche have spent just the one season in the second tier and that in the 1980's, so this is a big deal for them, they were 4th tier as recently as 2018. They finished 3rd this season, three points off an automatic promotion spot, but that doesn't tell the full story !
The home side were, rather incredibly, bottom of the table through 14 rounds (2-4-8) with just five goals scored, they have subsequently gone 13-6-1 with a very fine 35-17 goal difference, if we extend that 20 game record to the full 34 rounds, it would have given them over 76 points and they would have won the title by more than 10 points.
Della Maggiore, who spent his youth career at Olympique Lyonnais, which is only 25 km away, knew the club and area well before taking charge in mid season, but it was after the improvement had already started, he was head coach at Bourg-en-Bresse when they rose from level 5 to the second tier and knows how to get a small club over the (promotion) line.
Niort finished 18th in Ligue 2, three points above the drop zone, but that also doesn't really tell us how their season panned out and it was equally dramatic ! They were 3rd through 10 rounds, 5th after 15, 12th through 20 and still 13th with 8 rounds left to play, but the freefall continued, in fact it gathered pace and they were winless in their last 8 starts, scoring just 2 goals total and confidence levels must be at an all time low and there has not been much time to lift them . They have to make the long trip to eastern France in midweek and I assume they will do so by road (there is no real alternative), which is a six hour + trip.
This is a long journey and one into the "unknown" for Niort and they make it in awful form and having lost their way and unable to arrest a 28 game slide. Home win.
2 units Villefranche -0.5 ball 2.36 asian line.
Good luck !
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