The signs are that with four games left of the season, France's Ligue 1 will be crowning a different champion for the first time since the 2000/01 season. In that year FC Nantes won the French title for the eighth time, their history in the intervening years has seen them fail to replicate that success but instead suffer relegation in 2007 with promotion back to Ligue 1 last season.
Meanwhile the last seven Ligue 1 championships have gone to Olympique Lyonnais in what must be the most impressive winning streak in modern European football. Even more so when you consider that they had never won Ligue 1 before the first in that sequence in the 2001/02 season!
This season though has finally witnessed an achilles heel in Lyon, as things stand they lie third in the table on 61 points, seven adrift of the top two: Olympique Marseille and Girondins de Bordeaux. Whilst possible that they can mathematically keep their incredible run going, it does seem highly unlikely that they'd be able to come back so far at this stage of play.
The pretenders to their crown will bring a welcome break to the monopoly and stranglehold that Lyon have had over Ligue 1, whoever it ends up being. Marseille are on a twelve match unbeaten run which started with a 1-0 home win over their title rivals Bordeaux in early February. Whereas Bordeaux have won eight of their last nine Ligue 1 fixtures to move into contention.
Such has Lyon's domination been since the turn of the century, that either club will be celebrating a long-awaited reclamation of the title. Bordeaux (runners-up a year ago) last won Ligue 1 back in the 1998/99 season. For Marseille the wait has been a longer and bitter one. Their last Ligue 1 title was the 1992/93 season and that was taken from them in light of the infamous match-fixing scandal that enveloped the club soon afterwards and led to their enforced relegation to Ligue 2. The 1991/92 title represents their last official championship as seen in the record books.
Both Marseille and Bordeaux have been challenging on other fronts as well as in their league. Bordeaux have already claimed silverware by winning the Coupe de la Ligue, the French league cup equivalent. They comfortably defeated mid-table Ligue 2 team Vannes Olympique Club 4-0 a fortnight ago.
Marseille have had the Uefa Cup as a handsome distraction, several scalps were taken en-route to the quarter-finals including FC Twente and Ajax. The last-eight proved to be a step too far in a long campaign and they were defeated by Ukraine’s FC Shakhtar Donetsk 4-1 on aggregate a month ago.
Lyon on the other hand had only Ligue 1 to concentrate on for the last two months after they exited the last sixteen of the Champions League. They were victims of a rampant Barcelona who eventually overwhelmed them 5-2 at the Nou Camp and 6-3 overall. In fact after the first leg was drawn 1-1, Lyon have only won twice out of nine subsequent Ligue 1 matches and this is where they have lost the grip on the title that’s been theirs for so long.
On the 17th of May Marseille will face Lyon at home in the Stade Vélodrome. A match that potentially will confirm the deposition of Lyon as champions after seven years, and that may go some way to restoring Marseille back to the top in France after so long.
What is intriguing and unfortunate for Marseille is that whatever happens they will be losing their experienced and well-travelled manager Eric Gerets in the summer. The architect of their revival in the last two seasons, Gerets has revealed that he will be leaving after the end of his current contract. This is mostly due to a falling out with the club owner- Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who criticised signings and issued warnings over a potential lack of silverware.
Didier Deschamps has already been lined up to return to his old club as manager in June and it remains to be seen what sort of tough act he will be following. By the sounds of it he would do well to summon his strength and expertise from his solitary season as manager of Juventus.
Bordeaux do appear to have the easier run-in though, three of their four remaining fixtures are against teams in thirteenth place or below. Significantly they are separated from Marseille by virtue of a goal difference of just one goal. If they remain tied on the last day of the season then Ligue 1 could be decided by how many goals Bordeaux can manage against the lower placed teams.
A small mention must be made for Lyon’s historical predecessors FC Nantes. They are currently lying third from bottom of the table and are desperately trying to avoid becoming a yo-yo club and moving between divisions for the third straight season.
Just as with the top of the table they are cut off from above and safety due to an inferior goal difference. Only three league wins since the New Year is symptomatic of their season, but despite losing five of their last six games they still have every chance of survival. Their run in is not easy but crucially they face Sochaux (the team above) in their penultimate game, one they will surely have to win to enjoy the post-Lyon modern era of Ligue 1.