The suspense is at its height for the outcome of the Ligue 1 season. Currently 5th in the standings, Strasbourg plays Saturday night in Marseille a place in the European Cup. The meeting is to be experienced live and in full on France Bleu Alsace.
Manchester United, AC Milan, Liverpool
So far, the Racing Club de Strasbourg has competed a European Cup 13 times. The Strasbourg club was particularly lively in the 1960s, with five appearances and the highlight: a quarter-final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1965 lost to Manchester United, after eliminating AC Milan and Barça .
Later in 1980, under the aegis of Gilbert Gress, the club reached the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup, lost against the great Ajax. Since then, Racing has qualified for Europe only thanks to its successes in the Coupe de la Ligue and the Coupe de France or through the short-lived Intertoto Cup. We remember in particular the epic of 1997: the people of Strasbourg then took out Glasgow Rangers and Liverpool before falling to Inter Milan Ronaldo. The last European experience dates back to 2019with a failure in the Europa League play-offs against Frankfurt.
Possible scenarios
Racing is therefore 90 minutes away from a new European qualification, it would be the first directly via the championship for 43 years and the title of champion is to say the scope of the feat that the players of Julien Stéphan could achieve.
Currently fifth in the Ligue 1 standings, the Strasbourg residents will be assured of European qualification:
- if they win on Saturday (they can even finish 4th if Rennes lose to Lille)
- in the event of a draw, Nice must not win in Reims and Lens must not beat Monaco by more than 7 goals
- if he loses, Racing will have to hope for a Nice defeat at Reims and that Lens does not beat Monaco.
Strasbourg deprived (or almost) of its supporters at the Vélodrome
Strasbourg will not be able to count on its supporters on Saturday. Only 650 were allowed to reach the Vélodrome stadium: 350 in a TGV specially chartered by the club, the others by bus. They will have to make a lot of noise to be heard, since there will be about one Strasbourg resident for 100 Marseille residents at the Vélodrome.