Lille's Boss Paulo Fonseca Lauds French Ligue 1 Competitiveness, Array Of World Class Players

Written by Olaleye Oluwadamilola

Former Roma manager and now Lille’s coach, Paulo Fonseca has praised the level of French Ligue 1 competitiveness and it’s arrays of world class stars.

The French Ligue parades the likes of world stars including Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar Junior, Alexis Sanchez, Alex Lacazette, Sergio Ramos, Marco Verratti, Andre Gomes, Cengiz Under, Achraf Hakimi, Marquinhos, Wissam Ben Yedder, Carlos Soler, Brice Samba, Jordan Veterout, Jonathan David amongst many others.

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The Portuguese manager who currently has his team sitting in fifth place on the Ligue 1 table spoke with RMC about his experiences living in France and his thoughts on the league.

An admirer of Mourinho and Guardiola, he praised the league’s level of achievements in world football as he envisions that it can become one of the competition in the world with the development and emergence of young, talented players from participating clubs in an interview with RMC Sport.

Adapting to life in a new country and a new league can be difficult even for a veteran coach. He spoke about the transition explaining, “It is a very quiet, very warm city. People are very friendly. Even if I have little time to enjoy it. I spend most of my time at Luchin, at the training center.”

“When I can, I like to go for a walk downtown, to go to the park with my little one. The city is very pleasant.”

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Having joined Lille from Serie A Club Roma in the summer, he has previously coached in Portugal, Ukraine, Italy.

A center-back during his playing days, Paulo has a unique perspective on the game, and he is impressed in what is his 12th different managerial appointment in a fourth different country is doing.

“I must say that I’m very pleasantly surprised notably by the quality of the game, and its openness, the game is open tactically.”

“Second, there is great uncertainty in the results; there are many, many good players in this championship, with the emergence of many youngsters.”

“And I really like the stadiums, the atmosphere in the stadiums, the way people experience the matches.”

“There’s one thing we never talked about and which I liked, it’s the refereeing. The quality and level of referees in France was a very pleasant surprise.”

The coach spoke about what he also saw as the negative of France’s top division, “The only thing I think is that people here have no concept of the real value of this championship and what it could be.”

“We should perhaps value the French league more which, in my opinion, has the quality and the conditions to be one of the best leagues in Europe. It already is but if it were valued in the best way it could easily compete with those considered to be the best leagues in Europe. I have no doubt about that.”

The coach’s observation is an interesting point. While high taxes and television deals are a setback Ligue 1 supporters and players undervaluing the league may create a subconscious inferiority complex. With foreign coaches like Paulo Fonseca shooting for European success, that undervaluing may be a thing of the past.

Lille have won three of their last five games in Ligue 1 Uber Eats and could cut the gap to the UEFA Champions League places to two points with victory over Paris.

Meanwhile…

Lille played out a sensational seven goal thriller with league leaders PSG during the weekend and Fonseca could not help but admit that the two players made the difference in their loss.

After the loss, Lille manager Paulo Fonseca spoke with the media, where he was asked what went wrong for his team, and his response was simple, PSG’s star players showed up.

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“It’s very easy to explain the defeat in the last minutes, the difference is Messi and Mbappé,” Fonseca told reporters (h/t Le Figaro). “I think we dominated the whole game, we created more chances, we played our game, I think we deserved another result, but that’s football.”

“Scoring three goals here is not easy, we did everything to win the match. Honestly, I’m sorry, but I’m also very happy with my players and my team. Fonte has a gash in his knee, he was given seven stitches.”

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