Football Season Guide

The past campaign was a very complicated one for Pau but mostly because they did all they could possibly do in order to hurt themselves. In fact, they seemed to live in cloud nine between August and mid-October as they were utterly unbeatable and were sitting on the second place in the table. Then, quite out of the blue, wins almost stopped arriving: they picked up just 1 3-pointer in a 10-game streak and were even eliminated from the Coupe de France by Regional 1 side Merignac. Injuries, points inexplicably thrown away at the end of games and personal grudges thus led to the end of coach Usai’s experience at the helm of the team. His assistant, Thierry Debès thus took over, debuting with 2 away wins. It was just an illusion, though, as they resumed being inconsistent and eventually closed the season with a 3-game losing run, thus finishing 9th, well away from both the relegation and the playoff spots. At his first campaign fully in charge, Debès will have to deal with a major squad overhaul. Heavily affected by the reduction of TV incomes, which hit the Ligue 2 since the last season, Pau had to reduce expenses and so most of their experienced players left. They basically lost almost all their starters, beginning from goalie Raveyre, who had run out of the coach’s favour at some point. Experienced Mableu could thus be contending for the number 1 shirt with Salles, quite positive last season. At the back, they lost their two best players in centre-backs Ruiz and Meddah while back-up Kante retired. Paquiez, arriving from Grenoble, will thus immediately earn himself a starting place, with Bamba, inactive last season, and some youngsters also set to make the grade. However, it was the midfield that was hit the most by this refurbishing with Bobichon, Beusnard, Anziani and Touzghar all gone and just experienced Benet and Daubin traveling to Pau. The attack lost the likes of Sadik, Sissoko and Dong while no player of note actually arrived.