Where is Ligue 1 after ten rounds?
The standings in the French topflight present us with a surprising leader: Nice.
Can Nice go all the way?
Always a good team, sometimes a very good team, Nice has never in recent times been considered a title favorite. This season, however, they should be because there is a confidence in their play, a maturity in their execution, and a youthful freneticism.
The better indicator is another: Nice have the best defense in the league. It has conceded only four goals! And, pay attention: they haven’t lost a game! If you get through ten rounds of Ligue 1 without losing once, you’re guaranteed to have a historic season.
PSG, without Neymar
PSG have the best squad, as they always have in recent years, but they don’t have the best team. And not because Neymar Jr. left for Saudi Arabia, nor because Messi left for the USA Major League. It’s because Mbappe has remained fickle and missed summer training. He lives more with the future in mind, and currently alternates between superstar performances and Houdini-like fades. Which is not to say PSG can’t win this title. The individual value of its players is colossal.
Monaco, Lille, Reims, Brest, Nantes, Marseille complete the list of teams that will be shooting for the European places.
Next comes the small group of the carefree, which starts in Montpellier, passes through Toulouse and Le Havre, and ends in Strasbourg. Relegation favorites: Clermont, Metz, Lorient.
Lyon will not relegate
Olympique Lyon, currently in last place, still has the resources to pull itself out of the abyss. It won’t make it to the top, but it’s not a Ligue 2 team either. For now.
In Ligue 1, perhaps even more so than in the rest of the major western European countries, the current very complicated geopolitical situation is also complicating things terribly on the football pitch. Matches are played under a different kind of tension, of historical pressure, and all these variables, these human variables, matter when you reckon what may follow. Be careful, therefore, when betting on things beyond statistics.
