Everything You Need to Know About Saint-Etienne

29/01/21 2057

Nobody has won more Ligue 1 titles than Saint-Etienne and the club sit joint-third in the list of France’s most successful football clubs behind PSG and Marseille on total domestic and European trophies won.

However, this once great club has only won one major trophy since the 1980s and has even suffered a few relegations from Ligue 1 since their glory days. The club have looked poor for the last couple of seasons under Claude Puel and the threat a relegation looms large in 2021.

Name: Association Sportive de Saint-Etienne Loire

Nicknamed: ‘Saints’ or ‘The Greens’

Founded: 1933

Stadium: Stade Geoffroy-Guichard. Capacity, 41,965

Noteworthy Former Players: Kurt Zouma, Mathieu Debuchy, Blaise Matuidi, Fredy Guarin, Dimitri Payet, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Bafetembi Gomis.

Manager: Claude Puel. After playing his entire career with Monaco, Puel became manager of the club in 1999 and won the league title in 2000. In 2002, Puel then made the move to Lille where he remained until 2008, only winning the Intertoto Cup in 2004. Puel then had average spells at Lyon and Nice between 2008 and 2016, where he failed to claim a single league title or cup.

The French manager then moved to England with Southampton and spent almost a year at the club before being sacked due to his win ratio of just 37.74%. Amazingly, Puel remained in England with Leicester City where he stayed until February of 2019 before being sacked, leaving with an even worse win rate than his time at the Saints, 34.33%.

In October of that same year, Puel took charge of Saint-Etienne and has had just over 50 games with the French club and his current win ratio is the worst in his entire career, 30.19%.

History

Saint-Etienne have claimed 10 Ligue 1 titles between 1957-1981, which remains a record (PSG are on 9). The clubs have also won 6 Coupe de France title between 1962-1977 and won their one and only Coupe de la Ligue in 2013. Saint-Etienne were arguably at their very best during the 1970’s and even reached the European Cup final in 1976 but lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich. Saint-Etienne rank joint-third on the list of the most successful clubs in France, picking up a total of 22 titles, and only sit behind PSG and Marseille.

As Things Stand

Saint-Etienne were thrashed 5-0 in the Rhone-Alpes Derby by local-rivals Lyon, which left the club sitting fifth from bottom after 21 games and just 4pts above the relegation places. Each of the teams currently sitting in the drop zone have at least one game in hand over Saint-Etienne, which is something of a concern.

Claude Puel has failed to impress during his time at the club, finishing 17th and 16th in his last two campaigns with the club and things clearly haven’t improved this time around. Saint-Etienne might be better off ditching Puel while they still have some breathing room over the teams below them.