Before hosting Paris Saint-Germain this month, the players of Angers were advised to be on their guard. The champions, they were told, were not just gifted players but also experts in the dark arts. “We were warned that they were sly,” said the centre-back Yoann Andreu.
But the promoted side were taken aback by what followed at the Stade Jean-Bouin. A tangle with the PSG midfielder Thiago Motta left a particular impression on Andreu. “At a corner he stood on my foot,” he said, before adding the surprising part. “Straight away he apologised.” Another Angers defender, Romain Thomas, had also been anticipating off-the-ball antics – but not what David Luiz came out with. “At the first few set pieces he came up to me and gave me a friendly little pat as if to ask: ‘Do you enjoy playing against me?’” Thomas said. “It was the first time I’ve come across that on the pitch. He spends the whole time smiling.”
Even after Angers held out for a 0-0 draw that ended a nine-game domestic winning streak for the illustrious visitors, PSG remained “really respectful”, according to Andreu, who said: “Laurent Blanc even congratulated us as we were leaving the dressing room.”
Ligue 1, then, has not been as hostile to the small club from north-west France as their manager, Stéphane Moulin, must have feared in the summer as he prepared for Angers’ first top-flight season for 21 years. Before it started, as Blanc and PSG mulled over how to strengthen a squad worth hundreds of millions of euros, Moulin had to find a way to replace the striker whose goals had helped Angers finish third in Ligue 2, the top scorer Jonathan Kodjia having been lured to a club with greater resources – Bristol City.
Angers were favourites for relegation before a ball was kicked. At the halfway point they are third; stay there and they will join PSG in the Champions League next year.
It remains unlikely but Angers’ success so far, and the floundering of far bigger clubs, means it cannot be totally discounted. It would not reflect well on Ligue 1 as a whole but would certainly reward the outstanding work of Moulin, who is doing many more vaunted counterparts few favours not just by making light of big disparities in resources but also by degrading stock phrases about teams in transition needing time to gel. Moulin signed more than a dozen players in the summer – many at low prices from even smaller clubs – and after a hectic series of friendlies a solid and spirited team were ready.
“The first half of the season has been excellent, the players have far exceeded our hopes,” said Moulin after Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at Saint-Etienne, which was only Angers’ fourth defeat in 19 matches. That record is even more remarkable considering Angers have had rotten luck with injuries, with 11 players missing last weekend. “I am surprised by the consistency of our performances,” said the manager, whose team beat Lille and Lyon either side of that draw with PSG. Moulin says his team have had only one bad half all season (the second in the 3-1 defeat at Lorient in September).
If their season is a fairytale, there is no fantasy in the way Angers play. This is a side of diligent realists, hard, fast, meticulously organised and hugely committed. The goals columns stand as evidence of their approach: in 19 matches they have conceded 11 goals. They have scored 17, all but five of those from set pieces. In the words of Moulin: “We are shitty to play against.”
Moulin’s trick has been to form a squad of players who burn with the tenacity of men who have had to work their way to the top after fearing their chances to get there, again or at all, had gone. No one epitomises that better than Ludovic Butelle, the goalkeeper who was nearly killed over a decade ago, when, soon after joining Valencia, he pounced at the feet of a striker in a friendly against Parma and was left requiring emergency surgery. After having his spleen removed he went home to France to recover before rebuilding his career and now, at last, he is a first-choice goalkeeper in Ligue 1. Although the defence is front of him is robust, his heroics are part of the reason for Angers’ impressive clean sheet collection.
Further forward Billy Ketkeophomephone, a Laos international signed last summer from Tours, is a dynamic attacker and fine deliverer of set pieces, though the main supplier is Thomas Mangani, the midfielder signed who was out of favour at Chievo before joining Angers in February to bolster the push for promotion. The primary target for set pieces, and the most eye-catching individual in a highly efficient collective unit, has been Cheikh N’Doye, the scorer of five goals.
The hulking Senegalese midfielder with boundless energy, crisp passing and formidable aerial power was once championed by a Premier League-based compatriot, Salif Diao, who persuaded Stoke City to give him a trial in 2007. N’Doye did not impress and spent years toiling in non-league football in France before gaining promotion to the second tier with Créteil-Lusitanos, from whom Angers signed him in June. His performances since have made him a regular Senegal international and aroused interest of several clubs, with Chelsea, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur having watched the 29-year-old.
It seems clear that if Angers are to have any chance of hanging around at the top of Ligue 1 they must retain N’Doye in January. Then again, the shrewdness with which they have spotted and integrated players suggests that even if they lose their powerful midfielder, they will continue to earn the respect of their supposed superiors.
