7/14/09
Two bits of info for you today:
We’ve hired American, Scott Bernard, to takeover for the attacking coaching role recently vacated by Kurt Cools. (fictional) Scott & I played together at Atlético Madrid & again at Arsenal. He also played with me at the ‘98, ‘02 & ‘06 World Cups. This is his first professional coaching gig having recently retired from football with the “American United” club, Fulham.
Lastly, we’ve decided to terminate the partnership agreements with our African sides, ASC Yeggo Dakar of Senegal, CF FBF Bobo-Diaoussalo of Burkina Faso & FC Feindouno of Guinea. The terminations are immediate & we will not be disclosing the reasons & our keeping that information internal & private. Thanks.
Allons Les Verts!
7/12/09
Multiple news items here. We’ll start with players going out on loan:
- Two of our reserve midfielders, Bosnian Armin Causevic & Senegalese Boubacar Mansaly, are going out on loan to newly promoted Ligue 2 side, AS Cannes for the duration of the 2009/2010 season. Both players spent the latter half of last season on loan at Ligue 2 sides, Causevic at Amiens SC & Mansaly at Montpéllier Hérault SC. But Causevic only saw time in Amiens’ reserve side in the CFA2 & Mansaly had 2 goals in 6 appearances with Montpéllier. We’ve been assured, however, that both players will get cracks at 1st team football at Cannes during their loans.
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Moving on to a staff move: our coach who mainly handles attacking duties, Kurt Cools, has had his contract terminated by mutual consent with he & AS Saint-Étienne. Cools only had a year left to go on his contract & we’re looking to go in a different direction with our attacking coaching, so we decided it’s best to part ways. We’d like to thank Kurt for his tenure here at ASSE & good luck to him in his future endeavors.
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Lastly, the Les Verts reserves played a friendly versus amateur side, Amicale de Lucé. They were victorious, 4-1 with goals coming from Frédson, Amine Linganzi, Mohammed Gaye & Valentin Lavialle.
7/10/09
In a thrilling match for a pre-season friendly one of the perennial Greek leading sides, Olympiakos Piraeus, beat us 3-2 tonight. Again, as it’s a friendly we’re not too disappointed but all three goals we allowed were due to losing focus. Indeed Olympiakos’ last two goals were almost immediate responses to our goals & their opener the defense got caught ball-watching. So hopefully that’s just a byproduct of early days & not being used to regular match schedules.
Les Verts goals: Bafétimbi Gomis & Lars Nilsson.
Nilsson spent last year on loan to Dutch Eredivisie side Vitesse Arnhem & we are looking to offload him but he’s suddenly making a push to remain at the club. We’ll see. Interesting days ahead…
Allons Les Verts!
7/7/09
We’ve sold our Greek central defender, Stathis Tavlaridis, to last year’s Ligue 2 champions FC Metz for €1.5m. We felt Tavlaridis just wasn’t consistent enough to have him be anything other than a backup, so we decided to grant his search for 1st team football by selling him on to get a new start at a new club.
With Papa Gueye coming in & performing well last year & with younger Yohan Benalouane & Amine Linganzi coming on well as the backup central defenders & Benalouane being more consistent with his fewer opportunities, Tavlaridis’ days were numbered, especially as he feared not playing regularly would start to hurt his chances at by selected by Greece for internationals.
So, we’d like to thank Stathis for his time & service at ASSE & good luck in the future… except when he plays us of course! 
7/5/09
The 1st friendly of the year ended in a 4-1 victory for us over Languedoc-Roussillon region & Ligue 2 club, Montpéllier Hérault SC. A decisive victory is nice, of course, but the main point of the early season friendlies is to get the players’ up to fitness & get the summer cobwebs off of them. But it was nice to see both of our starting wingers, Daisuke Matsui & Dimitri Payet get goals. If we can get more goals from the wings this year, we can maybe make that outside run at the title or a domestic cup.
Les Verts goals: Matsui, Payet, Papa Gueye & Moustapha Bayal.
7/05/09
Despite his youth, we feel we’ve signed a big player who has been dubbed “the next Rafael Van Der Vaart” in his native Holland. We’ve signed seventeen year old midfielder Sjoerd Visser from Dutch club De Graafschap in a deal that could eventually rise to €3.8m contingent on appearances & other bonuses. The initial fee is €1.4m.
Visser operates in the center of the park, is a good passer of the ball & as many Dutch players do has great technical skills & is very “tricky” on the ball. He has only made nine appearances in his career with no goals but has already impressed greatly at youth level & according to our scouts did not look out of place or nervous at all in his few senior appearances.
He’s signed on until 2012 & despite his youth may challenge for a 1st team starting spot in midfield.
We look forward to Visser having a long & succesful career at AS Saint-Étienne.
Player Factfile
Name: Sjoerd Visser
Birthplace: Arnhem, Holland
DOB: 2/8/92
Hgt: 5-7
Wgt: 156
Positions: Central midfielder
Clubs: De Graafschap
Allons Les Verts!
7/1/09
Our pre-season training started back on the 22nd of June but today is officially the 1st day of the new 2009/10 season. Today is also the day that new players are able to come in or depart following transfers. So far we’ve only had players leave as there were several transfers that were agreed beforehand plus one in the last few days.
The players leaving AS Saint-Étienne are:
- Samy Houri, M, who spent last season on loan at AC Arlès-Avignon, is transferring to Queen’s Park Rangers for €775k
- Ilan, A, transferring to FC Nantes for €2m
- Blaise Matuidi, M, transferring to rivals Olympique Marseille for a deal worth a total of €9m (€8m now, €1m on his international debut)
- Jessy Moulin, G, who also spent last season loan at AC Arlès-Avignon is also transferring to Queen’s Park Rangers for €150k
- Jonathan Perot, M, is out of contract & available on a free transfer
We’re currently monitoring a few players to try & ring in for the new season but I’ll not let on too much as we don’t want other clubs to have info to be able to poach them from us but I’ll say we’re looking mainly to strengthen the midfield & also bring in an attacker of some quality. Stay tuned.
As for the players currently at Saint-Étienne training has started & we’re putting them through a rigorous fitness regime, more so than last year as early on in last season our fitness let us down & we drop some vital points that could have seen us finish 2nd in the league last year provided we didn’t give up so many late goals early on. So this year it’s brutal running, fellas, sorry!
Our 1st pre-season friendly is on the 5th of July to Ligue 2 side Montpéllier Hérault SC. Montpéllier is where our young midfielder, Boubacar Mansaly, spent the latter half of the season on loan last year.
So the summer is over for us, at least in terms of resting & lounging around. We’re eager to build on our success of last year & maybe have a dark horse chance at a (hush) title chance. Maybe challenge for one of the domestic cups & we’d like to have a good showing in the Champions’ League & get to the group stage where some nice revenue can be made.
Allons Les Verts!
To begin, real quickly, our training camp for the upcoming 2009/10 season has started but that’ll be talked about in the next blog post. In the meantime, AS Saint-Étienne had two of our players represent us & the France U-21s at the recent European U-21 Championships.
One player is soon-to-be former Les Vert, midfielder Blaise Matuidi & the other is reserve team player, fullback Yoann Andreu, who also spent most of last season on loan to Ligue 2 side, CS Sedan-Ardennes.
Here’s a quick recap of their performances with the French U-21s in the tournament:
6/16/09
France vs. Portugal W, 2-1
[17' Louvion (F), 22' Gameiro (F), 54' Vaz Tè (P)]
Andreu, did not play, unused substitute
Matuidi, substitute came on in 67′
6/19/09
France vs. Italy L, 2-0
[45'+1' & 71' Rossi]
Andreu, started, played 71 minutes
Matuidi, started, played 90 minutes
6/21/09
France vs. Romania W, 2-0
[27' & 63' Saivet ]
Andreu, not in matchday squad
Matuidi, started, captained, played 90 minutes
6/24/09
France vs. Germany, Quarterfinals, L, 4-1
[20' Aydilek, (G), 24' Sukuta-Pasu (G), 33' Jungwirth (G), 36' S. Bender (G), 55' o.g. Jung (F)]
Andreu, started, played 90 minutes
Matuidi, started, played 45 minutes
6/20/09
Young winger & star prospect, Dimitri Payet, has won the AS Saint-Étienne supporters’ Fans’ Player of the Year award.
Payet won the fans player of the year following a season where he had a breakout season of sorts with his constant dangerous runs from either wing, but particularly from the left, along with his incisive crosses & delivery from corners.
These attributes saw Payet go on to lead Les Verts in assists. He only chipped in three league goals but has shown potential to grow into a decent goalscoring winger in the future.
Congratulations on winning the fans’ award to Dimitri. I’m sure he’s thrilled as the fans’ POY winner since these fans awards at clubs are some of the most prestigious & humbling for a player since it’s the fans that butter all our players’ & staffs’ bread.
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With pre-season training camp starting in a couple days, we’d like to announce the new youth team players that will be joining the ranks with us at AS Saint-Étienne for the upcoming season.
There’s eight players joining the youth ranks. They are (name, position, hometown):
Philippe Bru, G, Franconville
Karim Desbordes, D, Saint-Étienne
Emmanuel Dietrich, A, Nancy
Emeric Fradin, M, La-Teste-de-Buch
Lionel Lacaze, D, Mulhouse
Ryan Mathieu, M, Illkirch-Graffenstanden
Mickaël Muller, D, Chalon-sur-Saône
Jean-Paul Pinon, M, Saint-Étienne
Included in these eight are two really good prospects, Emeric Fradin & Lionel Lacaze. In fact, Assistant Manager, Christophe Galtier, informs me Fradin could be one of the best prospects to come through ASSE in a good while.
Can’t speak to that as I’ve only managed the club for a year & only played here a couple years in the recent past. However, he’s certainly the best youth player I’ve seen in my short time associated with Saint-Étienne. For a player of only fifteen years, he has very good vision with his passing & his very instinctual with his positioning & movement in the center of the park. So, there’s high hopes around the club for Emeric Fradin for the future.
Allons Les Verts!
6/10/09
Full Internationals
• Kévin Mirallas, A, Belgium vs. Egypt, W, 2-0; started, played 74 minutes
• Stathis Tavlaridis, D, Greece at Denmark, L, 2-0; started, played 72 minutes
• Kasey Wehrman, M, Australia vs. Bahrain, WCQ, W, 2-0; started, played 90 minutes
6/11/09
Youth team striker, Njaka Rafilibera has signed professional terms with us until 2012. He’s signed an entry-level contract & will continue to play in the Les Verts U-18s & will probably get some action in the Les Verts Reserves. as well.
