Ligue 2 - launch pad for many stars
French football is increasingly producing more talents, contributing to the World Cup 2018 championship team. The French player plays and shines abroad is not uncommon. With the success of Patrick Vieira or Thierry Henry at Arsenal in the late 90s, the French player increasingly influenced the Premier League and other leading European prizes. The French recruiting component in the focus in June 2022 has 18 players playing abroad.
The top clubs not only recruit players from Ligue 1, but they also installed scouts in Ligue 2. Arsenal is one of them, when they target midfielder Laurent Koscielny when he still plays for tours in Ligue 2 in 2009. After a season of playing in Ligue 1, Koscielny was immediately recruited by Arsenal. In 2018, Arsenal recruited midfielder Matteo Guendouzi from Lorient in Ligue 2, and he was kicked right at the Emirates. Conflicted with coach Mikel Arteta caused Guendouzi to leave, but he was still a French player.
But not Arsenal, Leicester most successful with the Ligue 2. They brought Riyad Mahrez from Le Havre in 2014 for less than $ 600,000. A year later, Leicester also recruited N'Golo Kante from Caen with a transfer fee of more than $ 9 million. The two players later became the League of the Premier League championship in 2016. After selling Mahrez and Kante to Man City and Chelsea, Leicester earned nearly $ 120 million.
The Bundesliga clubs are also learning how to do it. Konate joined Leipzig from Sochaux in Ligue 2 summer 2017, in a free form. He quickly became Leipzig's pillar, before coming to Liverpool summer 2021. Former center -back Leipzig Dayot Upamecano did not play any match in Ligue 1 until Salzburg recruited.
The scorer of Stuttgart Silas Katoma also came from the Paris Club in Ligue 2. Wolfsburg signed a contract with center -back Maxence Lacroix from Sochaux. This second -class club also sold midfielder Lucien Agoume to Inter in Serie A Summer 2019.
Ilja Kaenzig served as Sochaux's chief executive, before moving to Bochum in Germany. He said Sochaux has a tradition of training young people, with good coaches, and the team also knows how to create a network of players across France. Sochaux is also close to france's eastern border, so it is often seen by scouts from nearby countries.
Pau FC also has a common point with Sochaux, when located near the southern border of France, close to Spain. The young team of this team is not appreciated as Sochaux, Le Harve or Caen. But Pau 2 matches in Ligue 2 will still be watched by many European scouts, the problem is whether the player can show enough qualifications to catch the eye of experts.
Explaining the Ligue 2 nurturing many talents for top clubs, Kaenzig said: "In recent years, Germany oriented the development of young players in the direction of technical and simple ball handling. Enough tactics, speed and physical strength. It is difficult to find players with all those qualities in Europe. "
Another reason why Ligue 2 gathered many potential talents is that Ligue 1 is no longer able to accommodate them. Those players will be loaned at Ligue 2 clubs, to have a pest.
The salary fund of the Ligue 2 teams is also much lower than the same levels such as the First Class of the UK, the Bundesliga 2 or Serie B. Therefore, if the scouts find the Ligue 2 player has the potential to become a star, the team. Will not be kept.
Last season at Pau FC, Trung Phong Samuel Essende and Victor Lobry's household impressed, made them more sought after by many bigger clubs. Pau does not have enough financial potential to keep these players, so they should accept them to go and recruit other potential players instead. One of the people brought back to the summer of 2022 is midfielder Nguyen Quang Hai.
