Nantes gains sweet revenge

Le Havre and Nantes today went head to head at Le Havre's Stade Jules Deschaseaux in a battle to pull away from Ligue 1's relegation zone. Those who have been following along will know that Le Havre and Nantes were rivals last season in Ligue 2. Before that season most observers expected the bigger city, bigger stadium, Ligue 1 tradition rich Nantais to forge their way to the top of the league and to eventually take home the league championship on the way to promotion back to the top league.

It didn't happen that way. Nantes was a superior team against most of the league but came a cropper in the head to head with Le Havre. Le Havre won both the early season game at Le Havre and the late in the season match up at Nantes, each time by a score of 1-0. Le Havre won the league and Nantes came second, the two teams joining Grenoble in promotion to Ligue 1.

Le Havre chose to bring substantially their Ligue 2 championship side to Ligue 1 even though considerably weakened by the signing away of its best player and Ligue 2 leading goal scorer, Guillaume Hoarau, to Paris Saint-Germain. Nantes took another tack, chosing to rid the roster of many of the stalwarts of Ligue 2, stalwarts whose main playing credentials had been established in Ligue 2. Instead Nantes aggressively signed new players, players deemed capable of competing immediately in Ligue 1.

Both promoted sides have struggled in the top flight. Going into the game they were level on 12 points from 15 games played to this point in the season. They found themselves hovering just two points above the bottom three relegation zone. Further the league's bottom five in places 16 through 20 have been set adrift, with 15th placed Nancy standing seven points clear of 16th place. With rock bottom Saint Etienne expected to find their form under new coach Alain Perrin, one of Le Havre or Nantes have been expected to drop into the relegation area over the next month.

With all of this on the line Nantes have taken the victory today and have at least for now separated themselves from Le Havre and the bottom three.Nantes had the better of chances in a scoreless first half and continued to press after the break. Early in the second half Aurelien Capoue controlled a clearance on the edge of the area before unleashing an effort which came back off the crossbar. Les Canaris finally went ahead in the 69th minute when Filip Djordjevic volleyed Guillaume Moullec's free kick past Le Havre keeper Revault from close range.

David De Freitas, who had come off the bench midway through the second half, made the points safe six minutes from time when he shot home after receiving a pass from Capoue.

The points were extremely important for Nantes as the game next week is against seven time defending league champion Lyon, a match in which Nantes will certainly struggle to achieve any points in the table.

Later in the day we went to another hockey game. Yesterday Minnesota wore white and Harvard wore crimson as Minnesota won 3-1. Today Minnesota wore gold and Harvard wore black, Minnesota 3, Harvard 2.