Saint Etienne - France ligue 1 teams

 

Saint Etienne - France ligue 1 teams

Saint Etienne is a Ligue 1 team that was formed in central France in 1933 and has since won 10 Ligue 1 titfinancial Headed by Coach Claude Puel, Saint Etienne plays their home matches in Stade Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in saint Etienne,France.

With a capacity of 41,000, the stadium is a multi purpose stadium though used primarily for football matches, and tournaments such as the UEFA euro 1984 and 2016, the 1998 FIFA World Cup,2007 Rugby World Cup. the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup among other sports.

Under the management of coaches Albert Batteux,Jean Snella and Robert Herbin in 1960s and 70s, Saint Etienne rose to famedom after bugging 10 league titles. 

Though Saint Etienne savoured it's best moments in the French football in 60s and 70s, the team won it's last ligue 1 title in 1981.

Since then, the club started having some challenges at the dawn of 1982 when the club faced a financial scandal that was engineered by the clubs President Roger Rocher.

Later in the same year, Roger was taken to court and jailed in what was termed as slush fund.

With the club's financial backbone tampered with, ASSE suffered relegation in 1983-84 season.

In 1986, As Saint Etienne returned to ligue 1 under the leadership of Jean Castaneda who also happened to be the teams goalkeeper at the time.

Struggling to remain in ligue 1, the club managed to keep afloat in division one though with a poor performance track record.

In 2000-01 season, Saint Etienne was hit by yet another scandal that involved two players using fake passports.

After investigation was completed, some senior management staff were linked with the scam and that led to the club's point being deducted and relegation to ligue 2 following.

In 2013, st Etienne won coupe de la ligue which was the first local trophy in more than 3 decades. With the team having a better year in 2013, trouble couldn't resist them when the team club was suspended to a one match stadium ban following fans misconduct and hooliganism.

Launching a good defense in court, the ban was lifted in July 2013.

A year later, saint Etienne beat their long time rivals Olympique Lyonnais 3-0 in a derby for the first time in 20 years since 1994.

With Lyon unwilling to accept the defeat, 2017-18 league season brought the two teams back together and this time round, Saint Etienne faced the wrath in a derby that ended 5-0.

With Oscar Garcia as the club manager, the loss got him replaced with the team's former player Julien sable.

As the league progressed, French football federation termed Juliene sable as unqualified coach for ligue 1 leading to heavy fines of €25,000 for all the games st Etienne played headed by sable as the coach.

In 2019-20 season, As saint Etienne was 17th when the season was discontinued following the corona virus pandemic.

Though times has been seen throughout the 80s to the current period, saint Etienne is by far one of the best teams in France ligue 1 and we wish them good times ahead when covid 19 strains are out of the way.