Les Aiglons are facing their destiny. That they don’t control. A match to tip the season for the good or the bad side. 90 minutes to get to Europe and put a positive end to an ups and downs season. The final countdown is on before this trip to Reims, which has nothing left to play apart from a bad turn at the Gym. Win to hope, and wait for a misstep from the competition. The evening is likely to be tense. But can turn drunken in Champagne. Because Strasbourg is away on the lawn of OM, which must absolutely win to believe in 2nd place. And Rennes plays in Lille, which found colors at the Allianz Riviera last week and showed that the Mastiffs were more effective with tap dancing.
Obviously the C4 we take!
To grab 4th place and play the group stage of the Europa League, the Gym must obtain a better result than Strasbourg and count on a defeat of the Rennais. If only one of the direct opponents stumbles, then Nice can finish 5th and qualify for the preliminary round of the Europa Conference League. “Today we have nothing so obviously only the C4 (the Europa Conference League, editor’s note) we take,“says Andy Delort.”It’s a competition that can make us grow,” confirms Christophe Galtier. “Do we have the Champions League level today? Do we have the Europa League level? At the end of the season we are in the place we deserve,“ asks the coach.
The penalty point… penalizing?
Since the end of the summer, the Gym has only fallen out of the Top 5 once and it would be foolish to run up against the wall. “It would be a disappointment” estimates Galtier. If his team manages to return in-extremis in the good car, “it would be a good season. Not exceptional. Afterwards, we will have to ask ourselves the right questions to understand we have gone through important matches.“We will therefore wait for the final whistle at Auguste-Delaune to take stock of this epic season and we may have to remember this penalty point lost on August 22 when we received OM. obviously hope that it will have no consequence in the classification.
Mario Lemina suspended
Whatever the epilogue, the time for questions will quickly arrive for Ineos. Three years after the arrival of the petrochemical group at the head of the Gym, the club remains a good distance from the “big guys” in this championship. Present at Les Aiglons training on Thursday, Jim Ratcliffe seems to want to move the lines and a speech from the Ineos group should take place very soon after the end of the championship. In the meantime there is a mission to complete. Without Mario Lemina (suspended), the Gym will have to be strong. And from the heart. To thrill that of his supporters.