Like Rodney Dangerfield, Angers SC would like some respect

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This article was published 29/11/2019 (2424 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Angers Sporting Club de l’Ouest has had a modest history. It’s been a long history in the context of club football — it’s marking its centenary this season — but hardly an illustrious one. Without a major prize in its hundred years, it’s largely been peripheral to the story of French football. Until now.

Since beating Saint-Étienne in late September, it has not been lower than fifth in Ligue 1, and a win today at Nice will ensure it enters December in third.

It doesn’t ask for much, Angers, but with Champions League qualification a very real possibility, coach Stephane Moulin has been channelling his inner Rodney Dangerfield: he’d like his team to get some respect.

“In France, there is no right to have a good story,” he complained to L’Equipe earlier this month, pointing out that his side’s success has, if anything, caused some analysts to disparage the French top flight for a perceived lack of quality. “The example of Leicester,” he added, “is quite striking. When they were champions of England at no time did we devalue the English championship. We said, ‘What a great story!’”

Now, Angers isn’t going to win le championnat. Ultra-wealthy Paris Saint-Germain is comfortably perched atop the standings and will win a seventh title in eight years next spring. But PSG, whose current reality could never have existed within the new confines of financial fair play, are an anomaly in France. And in the top flight’s “autre ligue,” Angers is pushing Marseille for the “autre championnat.”

It’s doing it by being steady, innovative and soberingly realistic.

Moulin, for his part, is the longest-tenured head coach in Europe’s top-five leagues. Appointed in 2011, he looked headed for the door two years ago, when Angers was second from bottom. But rather than sack him, general manager Oliver Pickeu extended his contract. Moulin, he told France Football this week, is a “unique” coach. And he, along with Pickeu, himself, and club president Said Chabane, is part of the triumvirate Pickeu says is responsible for the “alchemy” being performed at Angers. None of them is going anywhere because each understands he is only one-third of the mixture.

On the training pitch, they are ruthless. Having unearthed a collection of rough diamonds from the lower levels of French football, they rigorously polish their gems by tracking their every move with GPS. If a player’s data is off by even a few per cent, he enters specialized training to bring him back to baseline.

Pickeu says he’d love to have Kylian Mbappe. But, as that’s not possible, the best he and Moulin can do is engineer maximum fitness among the athletes they’ve relentlessly scouted.

Often, it goes without saying, those athletes outgrow the club and its host city of 150,000 people. At that point, it’s up to Chabane to move them along, financing a budget that is fourth-lowest in Ligue 1. Karl Toko-Ekambi, for example, was signed from Sochaux for €1 million in 2016. After scoring 16 goals in 2017-18, he was transferred to Villarreal for €20 million. Moulin and Pickeu, who has been with the club since 2006, always have the next player ready.

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One of those next players is midfielder Baptiste Santamaria. A tireless defensive midfielder deserving of a France call-up, the 24-year-old was signed for €400,000 from fifth-tier Tours in 2016. Last summer, Chabane rejected a €10-million offer for his services from Aston Villa. He’ll have tagged Santamaria’s value around twice that. In July, Chabane also acquired Mathias Pereira Lage for €1.5 million from Ligue 2 Clermont. The 22-year-old playmaker — a former Portugal U-21 international — is Angers’ assists leader this season and provides a counter-attacking threat when he cuts inside from the left. Bigger things await him, as well.

Having toiled quietly for some time, even a century, Angers is now making noise. It’s making a story, a bit of history. And, yes, it’s starting to get Moulin’s much-wanted respect. But the club is also in a small, ancient city where they’ll always be second to the Plantagenet castle and the largest medieval tapestry in the world.

The thing is, in Angers’ world, second might as well be a title. Second is success — and a warranted parting with modesty.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter: @JerradPeters