Girondins de Bordeaux: 2013/14 Season Review
It’s hard to know where to start when reviewing the Girondins de Bordeaux’s 2013-14 season. On the face of it, it was fairly inconsequential; they finished in the same position as last season, with no real cup runs and an appalling showing in Europe. It will go down as a decent season without any moments of real triumph.
The fixtures ordinateur was not particularly kind to the Girondins at the start of the season as they took on PSG, Monaco and Saint-Etienne during their first five matches. They would lose all three, including a supine display at home to PSG which included some bizarrely welcoming goalkeeping from the normally steady Cedric Carrasso when one-on-one with Lucas Moura. An uninspiring home draw with Reims actually saw Bordeaux slip into the relegation zone at the end of September. This would only last a matter of days but it still prompted serious questions to be asked.
Looking for highlights in the Bordeaux season requires a close look, as they are quite scarce. They beat Lille 1-0 and thus became the first to score past Vincent Enyeama and the Lille defence, ending a barely believable sequence of eleven games without conceding. Equally there was a good home win against Saint-Etienne and a couple of thrashings handed out to Ajaccio and Guingamp.
Lowlights, on the other hand, are worryingly abundant. The Europa League campaign produced one win and five defeats. A particularly insipid performance in the first game away at Eintracht Frankfurt where they lost 3-0 prompted a despondent Carasso to remark “it’s not as if we played Bayern Munich” . Things would get even worse as they would go on to lose at home to Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the following group stage match.
More galling for Bordeaux was when rivals FC Nantes came to town for the first Atlantic Derby since 2009. A 3-0 defeat to the Canaris was quite probably the nadir of their season, coming at home against a newly promoted side still finding their feet in the division. The team managed to turn things around in the wake of the defeat as they began a gradual upturn in form which culminated in an unbeaten December where they took 13 points from the 15 available. This revival eventually allowed them to climb up to seventh; a position they would not improve upon, although they did not drop too far below it either, and it would be their final league position.
They would not fare much better in the domestic cups, failing to repeat last season’s Coupe de France victory. While there is no shame in losing out to PSG in the Coupe de la Ligue quarter-finals, the same cannot be said for the defence of their Coupe de France, where they were defeated by fifth-tier Ile Rousse in the round of 32.While major upsets happen more routinely in France due to the nature of the draw (lower-league teams are automatically drawn at home when playing Ligue 1 or 2 sides) there is still embarrassment attached to such a loss. The cup which provided solace and a happy end to the previous campaign was not to repeat the trick.
The player that made the difference
One of the players to make a real difference to les Girondins is Gregory Sertic, who really began to come into form post-winter break. He delivered seven assists in 2014, the most of any Ligue 1 player. He also popped in three goals in the league, including a long-range stunner to open the scoring in Bordeaux’s 2-1 win at Nice. His shooting from range also proved too hot to handle for Lorient’s Fabien Audard, who could only palm his effort into his net in matchday 6. The 24-year-old looks set to step up and become a key figure in the Bordeaux side. Of course, should another team notice Sertic’s potential he may join the list of first teamers to have moved on out of Bordeaux in recent seasons.
It emerged towards the end of the season that manager Francis Gillot would be leaving at the end of the season. He leaves with a Coupe de France and a highest finish of fifth in 2012. While the football has not always been amazing for the neutrals he steadied the ship after the tumultuous aftermath of the end of the Laurent Blanc reign and subsequent turbulent end to the Jean Tigana era.
Where can they improve this summer?
Looking forward, Bordeaux face a fairly recurrent question in modern-day football, it is a question of ambition and ultimate objectives. What actually are their aims for the season? Under Gillot they achieved a fifth place finish in his first season and two subsequent seventh places as well as the cup win in 2013. Certainly a respectable return, considering Bordeaux tended to go through a period of apparent catastrophe in each of his seasons. Now, whoever his successor is, they will arrive with a good base from which to build and they should hopefully be looking to kick on. The top two may be out of reach, but that other Champions league berth has not been claimed by anyone definitively as yet. Even just climbing up the table would be seen as progress.
The 2013-14 season will not have the Bordeaux fans rushing out to buy the season highlights DVD but nevertheless they averted potential disaster in the autumn with relative ease before achieving a decent league position. They are ready for a new chapter. While one famous former French international will not be the new man at the helm, they will however have a former Bleus international as their new manager in the form of Willy Sagnol. Fresh from a spell leading the French Under 21s, he will be the man charged with the task of improving les Girondins.