On Wednesday, February 1, in Nantes, at the Stade de la Beaujoire stadium, the match of the twenty-first round of the French football championship will take place, in which Nantes and Marseille will play. The starting whistle of referee Eric Vattellier from Perpignan will sound at 20:00 Kyiv time.
Nantes
Almost every football club in France has experienced periods of rapid ups and no less rapid falls in its history. Representatives of the Pays de la Loire region are no exception in this context, as they began the second decade of the 21st century among the participants in Ligue 2, but later settled in the “elite” division. That’s just about any continuation of the triumphs in the national championship, the main trophies of which Nantes already has eight copies in the collection, and the last one is dated from the 2000/01 season, in the era of PSG dominance, there is no question. The victory in the last edition of the French Cup under the leadership of Antoine Comboiret was a real sensation, thanks to which the team made its way from the final ninth line directly to the UEFA Europa League.
And very soon the “canaries” will have to fight against the Turin “Juventus” for a place in the round of 1/8 finals of the European tournament, but at the moment it is difficult to compare the strength of the “main fraudsters of Serie A” and the modest middle peasant of the French league. Nantes have only four victories in the current season of Ligue 1, which is 20% of the total number of matches played. With such indicators, it’s time for the team to be in the relegation zone, which this year for France is unusual for four teams at once due to the upcoming decrease in the number of participants in the “elite” division. However, Nantes is by no means inferior to its opponents, having 10 draws at once behind them – only Reims has more (11). In particular, the Komboiret team did not lose in eight previous meetings, and at home, at all, was inferior only to PSG.
Marcel
Before the start of the season, the management of Marseille openly announced the launch of a qualitatively new project for the development of the club, and therefore the Ukrainian fan should be doubly pleased with the fact that our compatriot Ruslan Malinovsky was invited to join the exciting process already during the season. However, not everything goes so smoothly for the team of Croatian specialist Igor Tudor, and only after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar did his club begin to show a confident streak of successful results. The Côte d’Azur was gloomy last autumn as a heavily invested team failed to make it out of a peer group in the UEFA Champions League and lost ground in the title race against PSG.
However, none of the French teams has stability now, so the Provencals will always have the opportunity to catch up. It is unlikely that this process will be helped by the draw results of meetings against direct competitors like Monaco, as happened in the last round at the Velodrome (1:1), and the period of adaptation of Malinovsky in the new team certainly does not contribute to progress. Tudor fully trusts the Ukrainian in terms of perspective, but in cooperation with partners, Ruslan is still far from being in optimal condition. One way or another, but the unsuccessful streak of the end of autumn for Marseille was left behind, and the Provencals have not lost eight matches in a row.
Estimated compositions
“Nantes”: Lafont – Hadjam, Girotto, Castelletto, Santons – Mutoussami, Chirivella, Sissoko – Mohamed, Simon, Blas.
“Marseille”: Blanco – Kolasinac, Gigo, Balerdi – Tavares, Veretu, Rongier, Under – Guendouzi, Malinovsky – Sanchez.
Out: Merlin, Pallua-Bayi, Ruiz, Kloss, Lopez, Harit.
Forecast for confrontation
We believe that Ruslan Malinovsky and his team will win a minimal victory in the upcoming game. Our bet will be the position – Marseille will win and TM 2.5 with a coefficient of 4.10 on the Parimatch line.
February 1, Wednesday
Nantes – Marseille
Nantes. “Stade de la Beaujolais”. 20:00 Live TV broadcast – video service MEGOGO
Arbitrator: Eric Vattellier (Perpignan, France) Forecast Aroged – 0:1
