Ones for the future

By: Shazback | March 28th, 2008

Rennes is one of the hotbeds of French football youth formation, and has been considered by the French Football Federation and the Ligue de Football Professionelle as the best youth setup for the last 3 years. So here’s a lowdown on the kids’ seasons so far :

Yohann Lasimant, Yacine Brahimi, Yann Mvila and Damien “Not Anthony” Le Tallec are just a few of Rennes’ hot prospects…

Rennes 2 are doing well in CFA (4th tier) Group A, and are still running in the Gambardella Cup (U-18 French Cup). But Rennes’ youth policy has also lead Rennes to face teams in other competitions.

Let’s start with the Gambardella Cup, because it’s the most prestigious U-18 trophy in France, since the U-18 “National” league is actually divided into 4 “Groups”, and pits teams like Rennes, Bordeaux and Nantes that have very good youth setups against clubs like Laval, Chatellerault and Vannes, that are, to say the least, not very well known for their youth setups… But I’ll come back to that later on.

Well, here’s the good news : Rennes are through to the quarter-finals of the Gambardella! It’s not mightily interesting, since the players are all U-18s, and are mainly the “undetected” U-18 stars (Benzema, Nasri and Ben Arfa stopped playing in the Gambardella when they were 16 I bet…), but hey, you don’t get a quarter-final every day do you? Also, Rennes’ qualification is quite spectacular because it came after a 9-0 win against Santes. Yes. 9-0. Santes is a little amateur club from the north of France, and it was a bit of a surprise to see them in the last 16, but Rennes had a great game to get 9 past them… On the left, you can see Yacine Brahimi, who scored one of the nine, and on his left, Damien Le Tallec, who scored, get this, five goals. Damien has been a hot prospect for a few years now, and as he is the younger brother of Anthony, he was probably advised to stay put a little longer… After all, Anthony doesn’t seem to be fulfilling his potential.

The road to the quarter-final hasn’t been easy. Here’s how it went :

Round of 64 : Mondeville 0 - 4 Rennes
Round of 32 : Angers 0 - 0 (Pen : 4 - 5) Rennes
Round of 49 : Rennes 0 - 0 (Pen : 4 - 3) Niort
Round of 8 : Santes 0 - 9 Rennes

And guess who Rennes will get to face next? Lyon. Yep. Lyon are hosts as well, so Rennes will have to continue playing like they did against Santes, and stop playing like they did against Angers and Niort if they want to get any further. The winner of Lyon-Rennes will play against the winner of Strasbourg-Merignac for a place at the Stade de France, just before the Coupe de France final.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, the U-18 league setup is a bit strange, and with the reserves organised in a slightly particular manner in France, few very hot prospects regularly play in the “U-18 League”. So I’ll address the CFA question first. The CFA league is the top “amateur” division (Championnat de France Amateur). However, since there isn’t a “reserves” set-up in France like there is in England, top teams have reserves that can play as high as CFA. However, they can’t play any higher. The CFA league is divided into 4 groups, pretty much corresponding to geographic locations of the clubs, but some teams switch from one season to another from one group to another, depending on the overall situation.

So, these CFA leagues are about half real “amateurs” and half pros that are playing in their club’s “B” team. And these pro’s “B” teams are not only senior players that don’t make the cut for first-team action, but also youth players that the manager wants to try out at a higher level, or wants to give experience to. Since Rennes doesn’t have a very deep squad, the CFA side is almost a youth side, and most players on the CFA squad are one week in the U-18s, one week in the CFA… And they’re doing well! Rennes are 4th of their division (out of 18), and are only 3 points behind the leaders after 25 games! Pacy Vallée d’Eure are the current league leaders, only on goal difference ahead of Dunkerque. Rennes’ CFA are behind Rouen on goal difference, meaning that Rennes are currently the best “reserve” side in their division, and could very well challenge for the title. However, it would be anecdotal, because even if Rennes’ CFA side won their division, they wouldn’t be promoted… Indeed, only the best non-reserve side in each group is promoted. So Dunkerque and Pacy Vallée d’Eure are hot favorites for promotion to National.

Here’s the CFA Group A table.
As you can see, I pointed out the other reserves of Ligue 1 sides.
Just to point out that Rennes is ahead of them.

Well, I’ll round up with the U-18 and U-16 leagues. However, they’re not “that” interesting. Rennes are 4th in the U-18 league, 2 points behind Niort who are second, but ten behind Guingamp, who are odds-on favorites for the title by now… Pity their reserves were relegated last season… In the U-16 league, Rennes are 2nd, just 3 points behind PSG, but PSG has a game in hand. Also, it’s interesting to note that the INF Clairefontaine (one of the best youth academies in France) is a little off pace, 7 points behind Rennes, and having a game in hand… to play against PSG.

Well, that’s it.

I’ll just post a picture I found whilst I was looking for something to illustrate this post :