Football Season Guide

For Red Star it is set to be the difficult second season following their outstanding fifth-place finish in 2015-16 on their return to the second tier after 16 years away. The club from the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen will once again be nomads in the coming campaign. However, after playing their home games last season an hour to the north in the Picardy town of Beauvais, this season they will be based at the Stade Jean-Bouin in Paris. The 20,000-capacity ground is the home of leading rugby team Stade Francais and is situated adjacent to Paris Saint-Germain's Parc des Princes in the west of the capital. Red Star will not fill it, but crowds will certainly be up on last season, when only around 1,000 hardcore supporters travelled to watch their team. That will provide a boost for Rui Almeida's men, but the Portuguese coach has unsurprisingly seen a number of key elements of last season's team move on. Centre-back Remi Fournier, midfielder and skipper Danilson Da Cruz and fellow midfielder Yann Boe-Kane have all joined other second-tier sides, while stopper Julian Jeanvier's loan from Lille has ended. Other stars remain, such as Hamer Bouazza, Anatole Ngamukol and Naim Sliti, although the latter is bound to depart before the transfer window closes. Meanwhile, Red Star have been busy in the transfer market, with former Lyon and France under-21 centre-back Naby Sarr returning to his homeland from Charlton Athletic in England and fellow defender Formose Mendy joining on a two-year deal after a stint in Turkey. Algerian international Mehdi Jean-Tahrat, who can play in central defence or as a holding midfielder, arrives from relegated Paris FC along with Malian prospect Tiecoro Keita, while Gregoire Lefebvre was a solid performer for Auxerre in the second tier last season.