In Bastia the ground was like “a parking lot” smiled on the evening of August 30 Anthnoy Gonçalves. In Annecy, the lawn was of better quality but showed significant patches of earth, and yellowish streaks. The gardeners of the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 stadiums have been racking their brains for long weeks to save the furniture. And the inspection of the grounds by an LFP commission before each match causes a lot of cold sweats to flow each time.
Difficult in these conditions to play football in a suitable way, but each time Laval got away with it. “With very hard pitches we manage to show team values but honestly, compared to our game, it penalizes us a lot, we are not going to lie to each other“concedes Edson Seidou, one of the Mayenne left pistons.
It is no exaggeration to say that the lawns this summer are unworthy of professional football, but difficult to go against the vagaries of the weather. “We know what is happening in the world today. So we can’t do anything about it. _The people who work in the stadiums do what they can_we can’t blame them“says Julien Maggiotti, the midfielder who takes things philosophically.
Postpone matches?
In Annecy, the Parc des Sports is watered between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., which is not the case everywhere. At the Francis Le Basser stadium, a 500 m³ basin was created for watering the pitch. But as the Ligue 2 stadiums belong to the communities and not to the club, each municipality is subject to different decrees. “The rules of the game should be the same everywhere. I even saw that in some places in France we watered synthetic lawns before matches. In these drought situations, games should perhaps be postponed, because it is difficult and it is dangerous. Now, I am well aware that it remains football and that there are much more serious things” asserts coach Olivier Frapolli.
Because of these very dry pitches, the physical recovery of the players can sometimes take longer. We must now hope for better weather in the future, before the winter season which also makes certain lawns cursed.