Stade Malherbe Caen: April + May 2012

Here we are again, about to finish up this third season of french football. Welcome back!

Here’s the games for these months.

Here’s the look at the table before these games were played

With only the league to focus on i still had some nerves now laying at the top of the table though I knew that St.Etienne had some tough games left aswell.

We set off to face Stade Rennais.

Rennais — SMC  1 — 1 (Pedro Leon)

We had a difficult time containing them onto their own half as we usually try to do. Ismael Bangoura could capitalize on our mistakes at the back and smash home a lead for the home team. That lead wouldn’t last long though as just minutes later we got back on track trough a fine move from Pedro Leon where he cut inside the fullback to place a low shot inside the near post. A draw would set us back a bit in the league as Saint Etienne had just won their game.

SMC — Lille  0 — 0

A game we should’ve won considering the advantage of chances we produced. Though most efforts were from some distance we had at least 1 clear chance which Milevskyi missed one on one with Landreau. He cost os 2 points this time though Etienne couldn’t close in on us as they went down against Grenoble. We’re still in first place.

Auxerre — SMC  0 — 3  (Yatabaré x 3)

A hattrick from our hero Sambou settled this dispute as Auxerre is a tough nut to crack. We’re fending off the chasing pack in the league with 3 important points.

SMC — Toulouse  1 — 0 (Kryvtsov)

A tough encounter which saw us square it all out in midfield. A corner would prove descisive as Kryvtsov would get the header to it and give us another 3 points in the race for the Championship. St.Etienne stumbled once again against Monaco and now we had a firm grip on the title.

SMC — Berrichone  2 — 0 (Rakitskyi, Guarin)

Dominating would be a too kind of a word to detail this fixture. Berrichone couldn’t even get over their own pitch, we pinned them down like a 90 minute long Handball attacking move. Though we only managed to score twice i was impressed with the way we controlled the game. Rakitskyi got a header from a corner and Guarin scored a long range cracker. At this point we would only need another draw to secure the league title.

FC Metz — SMC  0 — 8 (Rodriguez x 2, Pedro Leon, Figueroa x 3, Bussmann o.g, Milevskyi)

Our biggest win yet and to secure the title with such a display was a true delight. Figueroa had a wonderful game so did Rodriguez. Milevskyi even came on a finished off the game with the last goal. Metz was so weak that even he couldn’t miss.

SMC — Lyon  0 — 1

This loss couldn’t bother me as a didn’t really encourage my boys to win it. I guess Lyon needed this win much more in their hunt for top 3.

OSG Nice — SMC  0 — 2 (Yatabaré x 2)

A nice ending to this season and the right man to score a brace aswell.

So the end table looked like this

A rather confident 1st place though the other top teams did under-achieve yet again.

Here’s the player ratings

It’s pretty obvious who’s going to stay in my plans for next season. Kryvtsov, Rodriguez and Yatabaré are vital along with Diego Alves, Pedro Leon and Figueroa. They will stay on for sure as having Figueroa I always can rely on one striker to score unless my new capture won’t succeed much like Milevskyi did not. Verratti will also stay as he is still young and developing, though he’s not as good as I hoped he would be at this stage. Boka will be bought as he has a 1,7 M £ price tag fixed in the loan deal. Someone said he might be prone to do mistakes but he has showed me that he is an excellent man for this ofensive wing-back position and has a delicate left foot that has assisted Yatabaré more than once this season. The Boka-Okaka leftside was neat to play. it sounds funny aswell. Okaka will return to Roma though as I’m sure I can find someone better. Eden Hazard is on my radar as the new AML and Pedro Leon has become almost natural in that position but I will need some fierce competititon in the offensive areas.

I will be looking to sell following players. Russotto and Milevskyi, Guarin might follow if I get a good price as Lyon and a few other teams are following him.

In other news I got an interesting job offer from Spain. Atletico Madrid approached me for the job as manager even though they were in second place behind Barcelona with just 2 matches left. I was to say the least tempted but I’m going to stick with Caen and try to win the Champions League.

Instead I found out that Belgium was looking for a new manager and I applied for that job and got my application accepted in the next few days.

I’ve always thought that Belgium has a bright future ahead of them with upcoming players like Vermaelen, Defour, Fellaini, Witsel, Hazard, Mirallas and Lukaku. Also being more or less french speaking I found it to be my perfect match and I’m truly going to enjoy this side-quest. As I’ve said before I have my eyes on Hazard but also on Lukaku so this will be a perfect opportunity to get them to fancy me over others.

My economy with Caen was looking great as I got these news

This makes for an interesting summer and hopefully a bigger transfer budget than last year.

Stay well my friends and I’ll be back soon with the summer transfers!

Majk