Parc Life

It seems like the race for the Champions League is back on. Two saturday's ago Bordeaux played out a tedious 0-0 draw with old enemy PSG and were given an absolute hammering by the French press and football community in general. An article on www.football365.fr claimed that Bordeaux are at the main culprits of a number of teams killing French football and ruining the good reputation of their domestic game. Slightly mis-guided as Ligue 1 has never been exactly admired outside of France itself, but despite being a supporter of Les Girondins I would generally agree with the accusations.

It is not only the press and opposition fans who have grumbled, top scorer JC Darcheville broke ranks to go the press saying he is frustrated by the restrictive tactics employed by Ricardo. Darche has received some pretty harsh criticism over the last two seasons but as he pointed out - how is he supposed to score goals when the team is content to pass the ball around in their own half for 90 minutes rather than take a risk? The whole PSG game was a bit of an embarrassment for Bordeaux as a club and despite attempts to justify the tactics, it became clear that the criticism had been noted and that there would be a much more positve line up for wednesday's game in hand against AS Nancy.

Having glamorously jetted in a few hours before the game and booked in at the quaint, English speaking but essentially dangerous Hotel Studio (not sure what French for 'squalor' is...) I made my way to the grandiose old stadium and spent the best €9 I've ever spent. Promises of a more attacking attitude were confirmed when Ricardo sent out a traditional 4-4-2 with Chamakh and Cavenaghi prefered to last weeks forward line or Darcheville and err... no one. In truth Bordeaux destroyed Nancy in a way that I've not seen them do before and although they still lack a certain 'class' they are finally starting to look much better than their opponents. 3-0 did not flatter. The atmosphere in Virage Sud was the best I have experienced in my four visits with the last half hour or so filled by singing, bouncing, dancing and even some Mexican waving!! I'm not really a fan of the old Mexican wave but the Virage Sud was infectious last wednesday and the whole thing really got the whole ground pumping. The atmosphere was even mentioned in the first paragraph of L'equipe's report the next day as being particularly celebratory.

Having beaten Nancy and dragged themselves back in touch with the Champions League Les Girondins were then thrown an unexpected life line the following Saturday. With Toulouse losing a little unexpectedly in Rennes Bordeaux were given the opportunity to not only draw level on point with TFC but to go ahead into 3rd on goal difference. All they would have to do was win away at UEFA cup chasing St Etienne. The frienship between the Ultramarines and the Magic Fans is well known but few were expecting any favours at this point in the season but a solid professional performance saw Bordeaux run out 2-0 winners and only 1 point behind 2nd places RC Lens.

Next game at Parc Lescure...?? Yes you've guessed it... LENS!!

ALLEZ BORDEAUX ALLEZ!!

I have created a blog of my visit to Lescure for the Nancy game which you can find at the following link:

http://girondinant.skyrock.com/

Play-offs it is then

"O Football, Football! wherefore art thou Football?
Deny thy promotion and refuse thee the Daggers;
Or, if thou wilt not, but let us back in the league,
And I'll no longer be an Oxford fan."

William Shakespeare's now famous reaction to Dagenham finally clinching the Conference title on Easter Saturday pretty much summed it up for us all. How on earth had a self proclaimed 'Pub team from Essex' not only overturned an 8 point deficit but won the league so easily? At 5pm on Saturday thank to us losing at Northwich Victoria (Yes thats Oxford United losing to NORTHWICH) the title winning margin was a whopping 16 points, a much bigger gap than we had ever hoped to win the league by. I ought to mention at this point that I was at Victoria Road to see the title clinched although I did obviously stand with the ever vocal Aldershot fans rather than the 3000 or so brand new Dagenham supportrers that turned for the first time. Pictures should be available tby Monday 23rd. In what seemed like a deliberate attempt to completely rub our noses in the dagger have finally hit a losing streak going down 3-2 at Cambridge on Easter Monday and then losing their game in hand away at... wait for it... yes Northwich. I would say justice was served but err well despite us hammering Weymouth 4-1 the gap is still 13 points and we still look a bit silly. Never mind.
The reason why I haven't written about the (mis)fortunes of Oxford for a while is that basically haven't had the interest to. Despite some cracking games including a 3-0 win away at Altrincham and a pulsating 2-2 draw at home to those dastardly Daggers it all seemed a little bit pointless when a) catching Dagenham was about as likely Jade Goody becoming a race relations officer and b) it would take an absolute disaster to not make the play-offs. How many times can you write "we won/lost/drew but it doesn't really matter"? Anyway tomorrow we are all off the Clarence Park to watch Oxford play at pretty much the smallest club in the Conference (and thats saying something) St Albans. If we win and Gravesend or Exeter don't then we will have clinched that play-off spot we need and although I've said we will get there anyway, it would be nice to secure it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Bordeaux win the Cup but who loses - Lyon or Football?

My Saturday evening was spent in my sisters room listening to live Internet commentary of the Coupe de la ligue final. To be frank it was light relief after spending the afternoon watching the worst game in the history of football. Oxford's 0-0 draw with Burton was just about the most uninspiring performance I've ever seen in my life, two sides who clearly had no interest in breaking into a sweat and strolling around like it was a pre-season friendly, I could go on... but I won't. The cup final was also a pretty pedestrian affair and with 5 minutes to go seemed certain to go into extra time at 0-0. Unlike Jerome and Co the French commentators do a great job making it at least sound interesting and even though my understanding is limited to names and words like 'corner' it was easy to get really into the whole occasion. The noise was fantastic as you'd expect from the continent, in fact as the players came out of the tunnel I thought the Stadium was going to blow up. Unfortunately for the neutrals (of which there are not many when OL are concerned) the game was not the classic it promised. The media had over-hyped the game as a clash of the two best teams in the country and everyone was hoping for one of those 'feasts of football' that are so often promised. What everyone forgot is that Les Girondins have not built their success on free flowing attacking football but instead on stifling opponents, ruining matches and scoring one goal. This tactic was employed so cynically by Ricardo on Saturday that rather than spend time doing a detailed write up I'll just repeat the sentence: Bordeaux stifled Lyon, ruined the match and scored one goal with their only shot on target. As a football purist (sort of) I can't help agreeing with Gerard Houllier when he says Lyon were robbed and that Bordeaux didn't deserve the win because they were and they didn't but the Oxford fan in me, having been starved of any success ever, say's sod it. At the end of the day the club that walks away with the trophy deserves it simple because they won the match. You can argue about 'un-sporting' tactics forever but on Monday the coupe de la Ligue was paraded around Bordeaux - not Lyon and Houllier should closer to home for the reasons why. Ricardo explained the tactics by saying that there is a reason why Lyon are 21 points ahead of them - which roughly translates as "had we tried to play football they would have battered us" and you can't really argue, Lyon could and should have won this at a canter.
The banner dominating the middle tier of the Bordeaux end carried the slogan "Girondins tonight you are not 11 but 30,000" and they meant it. The noise from the Bordeaux end was constant and got me thinking about the play-off final should Oxford get there. Will the hordes of U's fans and hangers on actually get behind the team and make it a real spectacle? Will they complain if we bring flags and streamers? Will they insist on sitting down? Something about Oxford at Wembley frightens me and I really hope our big day out isn't spoiled by the huge number of very very boring fans we attract.