Saint-Etienne, the five acts of a season in the green hell

It’s the end of a long agony for a club that didn’t ask for so much. Following their defeat on penalties (5-4) during the play-off to Ligue 1 against Auxerre at Geoffroy-Guichard on Sunday May 29, Saint-Étienne definitively recorded their relegation to the lower level. , eighteen years after leaving him.

All but a surprise for the Saint-Etienne club which has dragged its spleen throughout the season, between a failed transfer window, a sacked coach and limited results. A look back at nine months which precipitated the fall of the most successful club in the French championship, now tied with PSG, crowned champion for the tenth time in its history.

It’s over. The Greens are relegated.

– AS Saint-Etienne (@ASSEofficiel) May 29, 2022

A disastrous start to the season

We had to wait until November 7 to see Forez supporters sketch a first smile in this 2021-2022 season. A trickle of light on faces which have then almost forgotten the feeling that a victory can bring. Because before this 13th day against Clermont, Saint-Etienne has just signed the worst start in its history. Six draws, as many defeats and a place in the depths of the classification which hardly befits his rank.

Faced with a promoted, the Stéphanois will, however, believe for a long time in a new disappointment. Before the 4th referee comes to announce the additional time of the second half, Clermont leads 2 goals to 1. In three minutes, Krasso then Sow reverse the trend and Claude Puel offers his first victory of the season. Troyes in turn fell the following week against Saint-Etienne. The club is getting back up and running. Three months late.

Puel, the first fuse

A short-lived thinning. Paris and Brest lit the fuse (1-3 and 0-1 defeats), but it was Rennes who blew up the green house on December 5. Saint-Etienne is scattered, at home, like a puzzle with the score of five goals to 0. The youth of Forez embodied by Aouchiche, Nadé, Nordin and Krasso is not at the level. Neither does the transfer window. Ignacio Ramirez, expected as a promising striker, is a ghost.

The solution does not come either from the most experienced players in the locker room (Khazri, Boudebouz) after several seasons of tension with Claude Puel. The defeat, stinging, also definitively records the divorce with the supporters, who call for the departure of the coach. The technician who passed through Monaco and Nice landed on December 14. The same day, Pascal Dupraz replaced him on the bench.

L’#ASSE and Mr. Claude Puel have decided by mutual agreement to put an end to the mission of General Manager and coach of the first team occupied by the latter since October 4, 2019.

– AS Saint-Etienne (@ASSEofficiel) December 14, 2021

Dupraz, from zero to hero

If his time at Evian Thonon-Gaillard can be described as a success and his name will always be associated with Toulouse for having helped save the club in 2017, all in front of the cameras of Canal +, which had captured a memorable chat a few hours of the last day, Pascal Dupraz remains on a stinging failure in Caen. Not stingy with projections in the press, the man has the image of a firefighter who can quickly turn into an arsonist. His first outing is no exception to the rule. “We will maintain ourselves and I do not use the conditional”he asserts.

In the field, Paul Bernardoni replaced Etienne Green, while Joris Gnagnon, who arrived out of form, will not play in an official match for the season. Sada Thioub or Enzo Crivelli are also part of the winter package, all without paying a penny. The start is complicated. Three games, three defeats and the feeling that the Forézien club missed out on the cast. But the speech ends up taking. A time. Over the next seven games, Saint-Etienne won four times and got out of the red zone.

Bernard Caïazzo and Roland Romeyer blow. The two presidents announced the desire to sell the club a year earlier. Especially since behind the scenes, buyers are rare, certainly concerned about the situation in Forez.

Silence, it’s flowing

The confidence is there, too, perhaps. Pascal Dupraz already imagines himself with the Manufrance jersey on his shoulders, worn by the Chaudron. On the eve of the 29th day against Troyes, he lets go as follows: “If we maintain, I will make a match in the kop with the ultras“.

“I have more than hope, I have certainties, they are mine. AS Saint-Etienne will hold their own.”

Pascal Dupraz

at a press conference after the draw in Bordeaux

Nine days later, the light has definitely disappeared from the faces of the Saint-Etienne supporters. A victory against Brest on the 32nd day is the only clearing in the Forez at the end of the season.

Too little when you have four defeats and a draw over the last five days. Too little when his own supporters are not present during the last home game of the season, due to a closed session for fireworks set off during the previous match to celebrate the birthday of the ultras. A defeat without a spectator, in the silence of a season which will have been nothing but a succession of bad choices.

Dam Apocalypse

If the Greens had managed to snatch their place as a play-off on a goal from Hamouma at the end of the match in Nantes (1-1) during the 38th and last day of Ligue 1, the respite was short. Because in the play-off, after having won a draw at Auxerre (1-1) in the first leg, the Stéphanois could not win in front of their public in the return match. Another draw (1-1) after regulation time and extra time. The penalty shootout finally turned to the advantage of the Burgundians (5-4). This is how the relegation of the Saint-Etienne institution to Ligue 2, eighteen years after finding the elite, was ratified.

ASSE becomes the first team to be relegated at the end of this round trip play-off. The images of part of the public rushing onto the lawn to throw firecrackers and smoke bombs towards the tunnel leading to the locker rooms will remain as the epilogue of a nightmarish season.