MHSC will be looking to rebuild the dominance at home that they lacked last year, as well as a match focused on control before the first test with a home game against Strasbourg on Sunday (5pm).
La Paillade returns to the center of Montpellier. Since the beginning of summer, the city's landmarks, the Arc de Triomphe, the town hall and the regional hotel, have been covered in this orange and blue jersey, and the tram passes through the streets to tell us about their twists and turns and the comic opera at the Louis Nicolin Museum.
Montpellier breathes from every pore of its walls to the rhythms of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the football club, which was born in this northern part of the city in 1974 and which was driven by a healthy popular force.
“We don’t need it to define our territory, or to show that we are the emblematic club and sport of Montpellier.”Laurent Nicolin confirms.
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For half a century, the city of Montpellier and its club have grown side by side without knowing who would detonate the other's myth. They watched each other from the corner with vigilant eyes, but they moved in the same direction. It is the history of the city, the seventh in France, and the club entering the elite to play its sixteenth consecutive season, and the thirty-third in a history glorified by the French Cup and the title.
“We were not up to the level of last season at home”
MHSC takes over their city, which can sometimes feel like it's deafening, and Michel Der Zakarian's team is intent on retaking La Mosson, where it felt a bit foreign last season.
It did not lose much (five defeats), but it did not win more than one relegation. After three meager victories (Toulouse, Metz and Lorient), it condemned itself to defying the relegation vertigo until the spring of salvation.
“We weren't at the level of last season at home. We have to win a lot. When we needed the fans, they were there for us. We need to win more games to face us.”Swiss centre-back Bashir Omeragic, who has been promoted to vice-captain, is breathing down his neck.
More control over the game?
At the end of a season frozen on October 8 due to the fireworks affair and mutual misunderstanding, the partners of Teji Savanier, son of the city of Gili and beloved player, want to feel the breath of Botti and the public behind their backs from La Mosson. To become one.
Montpellier wants to win back the hearts, wants to regain control of the match, victim of the effectiveness of its transitional play around the missiles Moussa Temari or Arnaud Nordin. Throughout the seven weeks of preparation, the MHSC has undergone a transformation. To put your foot back on the ball, as they say in the departments of La Mosson.
“We worked on things that made us suffer less and play more. It was good for us to suffer, because we had a strong team in transition. Today, maybe we are at the end of this cycle and we have to play in a different way. Don't wait to see what you can do in the competition.”Goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte says impatiently.
No time to mess around
Take care of releasing the ball, resisting pressure, creating surplus thanks to a goalkeeper who excels in the kicking game, and entrust the rest to his strategist, Teji Savanier: this seems like a guide to not having to bear the game, nor the events.
In a league of eighteen teams, with three young players who are not newcomers, Montpellier does not have time to adapt. With Strasbourg, Nantes and Auxerre as the first visitors, the change is here. “We have to respond from the start,” warns Benjamin Lecomte. And it awakens the heart of La Paillade.
