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The new Ligue 1
season gets underway tomorrow with four Super Eagles players, Taye
Taiwo, Lukman Haruna, Brown Ideye and Onyekachi Apam expected to
feature for their respective club sides and doing their best to make
Nigerians forget about the dismal outing of the national team at the
World Cup.

The Nigerians are
not alone in that regards as French football is also desperate to
change for the better its battered image following the national team’s
disastrous World Cup. The French failed to advance beyond the first
round in South Africa and it has been speculated in the French media
that the team’s poor outing could adversely affect attendance figures.
How far reaching this could be will be put to test as from tomorrow
when the season gets underway with nine matches on the cards including
one involving defending champions Marseille who are up against Caen.
Having waited as long as 18 years to get their hands on their first
major trophy since claiming the Champions League in 1993, Marseille
will not be keen to give it up easily, but Lyon, Bordeaux, Rennes and
Auxerre will be hoping to make the champions’ title defence a testing
one.

One trophy already in the bag

Just last weekend,
Marseille with Taiwo in action, added the French Champions Trophy to
their trophy cabinet after defeating French Cup winners Paris Saint
Germain courtesy of a penalty shootout following a dreary goalless draw
in front of 50,000 bored fans in Tunisia, to keep the momentum that
helped them end their lengthy trophy drought. But regardless of whether
they play better or not tomorrow against Caen, fans at the Stade
Velodrome will be expecting nothing but a convincing victory over the
yo-yo specialists who would be delighted to avoid relegation at the end
of the season.

Caen, who won the
Ligue 2 title last season, have a good mix of youth and experience, as
well as a shrewd, determined coach in Franck Dumas who was in charge
last time they competed in Ligue 1 two seasons ago. But they will need
more than that to emerge with a point from a Marseille side that still
looks the same from last season.

Lyon out to reclaim title

The big match of
the day will however come up at the Stade Municipal de Garland where
Olympique Lyon will be hosting Haruna’s Monaco.

Lyon, the most
powerful French club of the decade, have now gone two straight seasons
without a league title having won the last of their seven back-to-back
Ligue 1 titles in 2008 but Coach Claude Puel is determined to end that
barren run in the coming campaign beginning with a win over Monaco who
have a young but talented squad.

Elsewhere, Rennes, have suddenly become potential title contenders
after a busy summer that saw them, snapping Apam from Nice, Stephane
Dalmat from Sochaux, amongst other new signings, while hanging onto
Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan. They will be home to Lille, while Ideye’s Sochaux
will be home to newly promoted Avignon.