Football Season Guide

The past season will be one to remember for Chamois Niortais as they managed to avoid relegation to the Championnat National only thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic that set a premature end to the campaign. In fact, they avoided the direct drop due to a better goal difference than Le Mans but also managed to dodge the play-off nightmare. Not bad for a side that, after a very positive start to the season, had been capable of collecting only 1 win in the 17 games played between mid-September and the beginning of February. Coach Franck Passi, who led the team from January to the end of the campaign, was eventually let go and replaced by 44-year-old Sébastien Desabre, who is new to Ligue 2. After beginning his career at the helm of the amateur ESC Rocheville, Desabre made his name leading an array of African clubs and obtaining successes in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Tunisia and Angola. It has to be seen, though, whether he can be successful also at this level. The summer transfer campaign saw them losing a few protagonists, especially in the defence. In fact, the likes of Sans, Da Costa and Lapis, who were regulars at some stage or another, all left. The management still saw no reason for replacing them, which comes as some surprise as Chamois conceded 41 goals in the past campaign, performing only better than the 2 relegated sides. Moreover, they lost Leautey, who was also a regular, and could also end up seeing Sissoko’s departure. This would represent a huge blow for Niort as the striker scored 50% of the team’s goals last season, 15. At the moment, Desabre is fielding the newly-arrived Ibnu Ba in attack, who has a positive but limited scoring record in the Championnat National, 8 goals in 13 games, but is an unknown entity at this level. The feeling is that the squad still needs some strengthening in all the departments.