Stade Malherbe Caen: April 2013

Okay.. so onto it then. I’ll welcome you back once again to my french league story and following of my Red and Blue Caen team on their road to Champions league and Ligue 1 glory. We won the ligue 1 last season and will certainly look to defend the title but we are in for a tough run as Lyon is making no mistakes in first place and we are trailing by a few points in second place. The Champions League saw us knockout Juventus and we were facing Bayern Munich in the Quarter Final.

Here the matches of April

The Bayern matches being a highlight this month as we managed the beat them out of the competition (2-1 on aggregate). We outplayed them on our home pitch and I was a bit distrought that we didn’t kill the game. Gignac was the man to blame as he had the best opportunities but thankfully Hazard put at least one ball past them thanks to a fine assist from Yatabaré, who also got the man of the match award for his constant threat on the right flank.

The return leg was a completly different story as Bayern needed to play a different game from the first one and was going all-out for a win. They got the first blood through Ribery but just 2 minutes later Yatabaré equalised and this goal was vital as Bayern would now need to score two more goals to proceed. But they wouldn’t manage to score any more goals and we were though to the Semi-Finals!

We got Tottenham in the Semi’s and it was going to be a tough contest. The other two teams still in the competition was our french rivals Lyon and Porto, who managed to knock out Barcelona to get here.

The matches weren’t through for this month as they managed to squeeze in the semi-final matches here aswell as another ligue 1 game against PSG.

And just look at this drama… We won 1-0 at home and then managed to get an away goal yet again and that takes us through once again.

In the first game we had the upperhand but i could’ve easily ended in their favour. Thankfully we have Yatabaré on our team and he is a true hero for Caen by scoring in yet another important game.

In the second game we started out great. Gignac got us infront after just 7 minutes and yet again our opponents needed to score 3 goals to knock us out. Tottenham got close though by their 2 goals in the second half but we could defend the last 15 minutes to secure the result that got us through to the Final. Porto knocked Lyon out and I felt that it’s now or never as we would probably never get a better chance at winning the CL, looking at the team we are going up against.

Porto with players like Hulk, Raul Mereilles, Milan Badelj, Bruno Alves, Alvaro Pereira could be tough to face but I feel that I’ve knocked out better teams already. Fingers crossed! They do have a wonderful Regen.. i might do an in-depth analysis of him just before the game maybe.

Looking at the league games we won 2, drew 1 and lossed 1. Still in second place but Lyon isn’t losing ground and it looks like we’ll finish in second place. It’s a bit sad but I have my focus on the CL anyway. We won the semi-final of the French Cup aswell and we are going to face the pretty average side Nantes FC in the final and I’ll be looking to secure that title before going in for the CL Final.

Sorry for the lack of informational pictures about the squad but there will be improvements in that department. Only one month left now! Thanks for reading!

Majk