Ligue 1 geography: no co-city derby, is there an equilibrium distribution of fault zones?

Hello friends, I am Pictorial Number, a small UP master who likes to make maps.

In this issue we are talking about the geography of Ligue 1, which has the most balanced distribution of clubs among the five major leagues.

There may be debate as to whether Ligue 1 is one of Europe's top five leagues, but UEFA's European competition coefficient updated in early March shows Ligue 1 indeed finishing fifth, thanks in large part to Paris Saint-Germain, who have been in the knockout stages of the Champions League for more than a decade and finished runners-up in 2019-20, so let's start with it.

I. Paris

Paris is the capital of France and the largest metropolis in the European Union (largely thanks to Brexit). Paris Saint-Germain, who is tied with Saint-Etienne for the "Ten Champions" in Ligue 1, was formed in 1970 by merging Sporting Saint-Germain in 1904 and Paris FC in 1969, but Paris FC became independent in 1972.

The name "Saint-Germain" is more concerned by fans and friends, it refers to the satellite city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (sometimes referred to as Saint-Germain) northwest of Paris, which is named in honor of the bishop of Paris in the 6th century AD - Saint-Germain, but this "Saint-Germain" is not Germanic, because his parents are Romanized Gauls, and Gauls are actually a branch of the Celts.

Saint-Germain is considered the protector of the poor, in addition to Saint-Germain-en-Lay, many place names in France, Belgium, Italy and Canada are derived from him, for example, there is the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district in the center of Paris. It is important to note that the spelling of Saint-Germain-des-Prés is not the same as that of Dutch striker Memphis Depay.

Before the Qatari consortium took possession of Paris Saint-Germain, the status of "Paris" and "Saint-Germain" in its logo was roughly equal, not only using the same font, but also adding the Eiffel Tower, which symbolizes Paris, and the cradle symbolizing Saint-Germain (in memory of Louis XIV, who was born at the Château d'Saint-Germain-en-Lay).

After the acquisition by oil capital, Saint-Germain's character was weakened, not only the cradle was deleted, but the font size and position of "Saint-Germain" were changed, although "Greater Paris" still uses a training center based on the former Saint-Germain sports club's Georges Lefèvre and surrounding facilities.

But it may not last long, as Paris Saint-Germain's new training center in 2020 is nearing completion, and the whole team went to the field at the end of January to see the progress of the project, after which the old training center will be mainly used by the women's team.

Paris Saint-Germain's home stadium is the Parc des Princes, to the north is the Jean Bowen Stadium, which mainly hosts rugby matches, and further north is the Roland Garros Stadium (clay), where the French Open is held.

Although Paris currently has only one Ligue 1 team, in the distant 1947-48 season, there were three Parisian teams competing in the top flight, namely Red Star Paris, Racing Club de France and Sporting de France, which still exist today, but all in the lower leagues.

II. Haute-France

Île-de-France, where Paris is located, is France's richest region, with a per capita income of about $28,168 in 2019, according to the OECD; Upper France to the north is the poorest region in France, with a per capita income of about $22,030 in 2019, but the gap between the two is not large, less than 1.28 times, which indicates that the regional gap in income distribution in France is relatively small, compared with Italy (1.64 times) and some Asian, African and Latin American countries There are obvious regional income barriers.

Lens is currently third in Ligue 1 and is likely to get a place in Europe or even the Champions League, we have done a special feature - "Lens of Haute-France: Le Pen ticket warehouse sponsored by Macron"? , I will not repeat it here.

Lille Olympic, who form the "Northern Derby" with Lens and the highest latitude team in Ligue 1, only 9 kilometers from the French-Belgian border, nicknamed "Mastiff", their biggest achievement was to break the streak of Grand Paris in the 2020-21 season, thus winning the fourth top-flight trophy in the team's history.

Lille's home stadium is the former mayor's Pierre Mauroy stadium, which has a capacity of more than 50,000 people, is not only the third largest stadium in Ligue 1, but also the only stadium with a retractable roof, currently named Decathlon Arena by sponsors.

III. The Great East

On the eastern side of Hautes-France is the Grand Eastern Region, which was formed by the merger of Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardennes, and although named Grand East, it actually only governed the northeastern part of France. As a result of Metz's relegation, the Grand East now has only 3 Ligue 1 teams.

The capital of the Great East is Strasbourg, which in the past was the capital of the Alsace region. Because the novel "The Last Lesson" was selected for language textbooks, Alsace is relatively well-known in the mainland, and the only local Ligue 1 team has also added "Alsace" to the club's name, it is Alsace Strasbourg Athletic Club, which was founded in 1906 during the German rule period, when the name was Fussball Club Neudorf, Newdorf is a community in Strasbourg (similar to Brentford is a community in London). )。

Strasbourg is one of the few teams to combine all three French cups, including Ligue 1, Coupe de France and (no longer held), and its home stadium is named after the Meinau neighborhood in the south of the city, which seats around 26,000 people.

France originated from the Frankish Kingdom in the early Middle Ages, its founding monarch Clovis was baptized in Reims, and most of the subsequent French monarchs were basically crowned in Reims Cathedral, so Reims, who won the Ligue 1 championship 6 times, specially added a crown to the visual symbol of the club to highlight the glorious history of the city.

Reims' home stadium is the Auguste Delona Stadium, a tribute to members of the Resistance, who was tortured and killed after being arrested by Vichy French police in 1943 and handed over to the Gestapo.

Founded in 1986, Troyes is currently the youngest team in Ligue 1, and they were controlled by City Football Group in 2020, sharing the same family as Manchester City, New York City, Mumbai City, Melbourne City, as well as clubs such as Palermo, Girona, Lommer (Group B team), Yokohama Mariners and Sichuan Jiuniu.

The full name of Troyes is Espérance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne), and "Champagne" refers to the Champagne region (Reims and Troyes are its central cities), and in theory the champagne made here is the real champagne (be careful not to open it at halftime).

"Aub" refers to the province of Aub, the provincial capital is Troyes, and the number of the province is 10, so the central logo of Troyes is "10", and "Hope" is a good blessing, and the team with similar names is the African Espérance Sportive de Tunis.

Troyes won the Intertoto Cup in 2001 (the tournament has since been discontinued) and its home stadium is the Stade de l'Aube, named after the province, with a capacity of about 20,000 people.

IV. Auxerre

To the south of the Grand East is the Burgundy-Franche-Condé region, whose capital Dijon is also the provincial capital of Córdol, where the local Cordor Dijon football club was relegated to Ligue 2 the year before, but Auxerre was promoted to Ligue 1 last year, so Bevercón still has a top-flight team.

The full name of Auxerre is the Auxerre YMCA, which had a Catholic background at the time of its establishment, so the club logo is painted with an octagonal cross (Maltese Cross).

Auxerre's home stadium is the Stade de l'Abbé-Deschamps, named after the club's founder, with a capacity of about 18,000 people. It should be noted that Father Deschamps is not a relative of Didier Deschamps, the head coach of the French team.

V. Lyon and Clermont

To the south of the Beaufercón region is the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, whose capital is Lyon, the headquarters of Interpol. There has been a lot of debate about who is the second largest city in France between Lyon and Marseille, which is actually caused by different statistical calibers.

I looked through the 2019 population data released by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economics and found that in terms of cities (Municipality) alone, the city of Marseille (about 870,000 people) is larger than the city of Lyon (about 520,000 people); In terms of metropolitan areas, the Métropole d'Aix-Marseille-Provence (about 1.9 million people) is still larger than the Métropole de Lyon (about 1.41 million people); In terms of the urban agglomeration (Agglomération urbaine, also known as the "urban unit" - Unité urbaine), the Unité urbaine de Lyon (about 1.69 million people) is larger than the Unité urbaine de Marseille-Aix-en-Provence (about 1.61 million people) in Provence, according to the above data. Who do you think is second in Lyon or Marseille?

Lyon Olympique are the only team to have won seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles (2001-02 to 2007-08), which were acquired by the US-based Eagle Football Holdings late last year, becoming brother clubs with Crystal Palace, Botafogo and Molenbeek.

Lyon's home stadium is the French insurer-named Groupama Stadium, which has a capacity of nearly 60,000 people and is second in Ligue 1, and along with the club, it belongs to the Euronext Paris-listed OL Group, which currently costs about 3 euros per share, compared with an issue price of 24 euros in 2007.

Clermont was promoted to the top flight for the first time in the 2021-22 season when they came from Clermont-Ferrand (created by the merger of Clermont and Mont-Ferrand in 1630), the provincial capital of the Mont de Dom province in the Oroa region, so the number of Mont de Dom - 63 was added to the club logo.

The figure in the logo is the silhouette of the statue of Vicintoli in the center of Clermont-Ferrand, a Gallic leader in the 1st century BC who led an army against the Roman legions under Caesar for the freedom of his tribe, and the creator of its sculpture, Bartholdi, who also designed the Statue of Liberty in New York, USA.

Clermont's home stadium is the former mayor of the Gabriel Montpid stadium, who participated in the anti-German partisans during World War II and was mayor for 28 and a half years from August 1944, during which he blocked Michelin's involvement in the local education system.

Puaran and Monaco

To the south of the Oroa region is the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the Mediterranean coast, its capital is Marseille, and the city of Marseille Olympic and Paris Saint-Germain form the national derby (Le Classique) and Lille Olympics form the Olympic Derby (Choc des Olympiques).

There are many clubs in France that bear the name of the Olympiad, mainly in response to the revived Olympic movement in modern times, but the Marseille Olympic Games has another meaning, because Marseille originated from the trading post established by the ancient Greeks in 600 BC, and the name Olympic gave it a connection to Greek roots.

Marseille's home stadium is the Stade de Vilodrom, with a capacity of 67,000 people, it is the second largest stadium in France (after the Stade de France in Saint-Denis) and the largest stadium in Ligue 1. Vélodrome means racing track, as it was founded and cycling races were often held.

The Provence region where Marseille is located is famous for its lavender, which, like Tuscany we speak of in Serie A geography, is also an "ideal city" for mainland real estate developers, and Suzhou, Nanning and even Ulanqab have properties called "Provence".

The Primorsky region in southeastern Provence has its own name, the Côte d'Azur, and its core cities are Toulon, Nice and Cannes, where the Olympic Nice and Cannes football clubs are founding members of Ligue 1 (1932-33 season).

But Cannes has been relegated to the fifth tier of the league, Nationale Group C (N3), and to return to Ligue 1, it will need to step through N2, Championnat National and Ligue 2.

Nice is currently doing well, having reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League (against Basel) and is the only Ligue 1 side currently remaining in the third tier of Europe, owned by British billionaire Sir Ratcliffe, who has recently tried to buy Manchester United.

Nice's home stadium is the Allianz Riviera named by German insurance companies, which is the Italian and English word for "Côte d'Azur", and as for why not adopt the French or German "Côte d'Azur" (both Côte d'Azur), probably because the Riviera comes from Old French (Riviere).

The distance between Nice and Monaco is only a dozen kilometers, and they are the two closest Ligue 1 teams, but they are not a city derby, because the Association sportive de Monaco Football Club is not even in France, but from the Principality of Monaco (note that it is not the Kingdom of Morocco).

Monaco are quite successful in the processing of rising stars, often bringing in budding young players and developing them to cash in on their talents before selling them at high prices, such as B-seat, Jristiano Ronaldo and Chuameni, and of course most notably Kylian Mbappe, who is also the European player with the highest single transaction fee (about 180 million euros).

In addition, the peak of his career in Ligue 1's all-time top scorer, Delio Onnis, has been spent mainly in Monaco, scoring a total of 299 goals in Ligue 1, 157 of which were scored while wearing a red and white shirt (Monaco's shirt color).

Monaco's home stadium, named after the late head of state, is the Stade Louis II, which, despite having a capacity of less than 20,000 people, hosted more than a dozen European Super Cups between 1998 and 2012.

VII. Occitani and the Fault Zone

To the west of Puaran is Occitani, with the best historical record in the region being Sète 34 (two-time Ligue 1 champion), followed by Montpellier Hérault Sport Club, the capital of the department of Hérault (number 34).

Montpellier won the team's first and only Ligue 1 title in 2011-12 when the main scorer was Olivier Giroud (Ligue 1 Golden Boot that season, 21 goals), and since then he has lifted a trophy almost every year, winning four of the FA Cup alone, most importantly winning the Hercules Cup with France and lifting the Champions League trophy at Chelsea.

Montpellier's home stadium is the Mozón-98 World Stadium, which refers to the Mozon River outside the stadium, and "98 World" refers to the six matches it hosted in the 1998 World Cup.

The capital of the Ocritani region is Toulouse, where Juste Fontaine, the World Cup record for 13 goals, died on 1 March, also briefly in charge of Toulouse FC.

Toulouse was acquired in 2020 by US-based RedBird Capital, which also controls AC Milan and acquired a stake in Liverpool through its investment in Fenway Sports.

Toulouse's home stadium, Toulouse's home stadium, will host five Rugby World Cups (1954/72/99 and 2007/23), but only one Football World Cup (1998).

The Garonne River runs through the city through Toulouse, and the Toulouse Stadium is located on the island of Ramier (Île du Ramier) in the river. As the third largest river in France (Rhône first/Loire second), the Garonne eventually flows through Bordeaux into the Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic Ocean, so that Toulouse upstream and Bordeaux downstream form the Derby de la Garonne.

However, with Bordeaux's relegation to Ligue 2, the new Aquitaine region formed a "Ligue 1 fracture zone" with the Centre-Loire Valley and Normandy regions, and all three regions now do not make up a top-flight team.

The most special is the Centre-Loire Valley region, they do not even have a Ligue B team, there are currently only 2 national league (sometimes translated as Ligue C) mid-table teams - Orleans and Châteauroux, the last time the entire region played in Ligue 1 was in the 1997-98 season (Châteauroux) in the last century, which is considered the "football desert" of France.

8. Anjou and Brittany

There are 5 top league teams on the west side of the "Ligue 1 Belt", except for Angers, the other 4 teams belong to the Brittany region, named after British immigrants who crossed the Channel at the end of the Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages.

Angers was the capital of the County of Anjou and the Duchy of Anjou in ancient times, and Richard I (King of the Lionhearts), who brought the three-lion pattern to England, was also the Count of Anjou, and he was also buried in the Fontevraud Abbey in the diocese of Angers, and was one of the few British kings buried in France.

The strongest team in the Anjou region is Sporting Club Anges West, which is located in the west of France, and their home stadium is the Raymond Copa (once the first man in French football) who is named after a player of Polish origin, because Angers was the first Ligue 1 team that Coppa joined, and he died in Angers in his later years.

Nantes belongs to the historical Brittany region and was once the seat of the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, but when France carried out administrative division reform after World War II, it artificially incorporated the Atlantic Loire department of Nantes into the Loire Region, not the Breton Region, and became the capital of the Loire Region.

Nantes FC is a Ligue 1 powerhouse that, along with Monaco, has won eight Ligue 1 titles, behind Paris Saint-Germain, Saint-Etienne and Olympique de Marseille (9).

Its home stadium is the Bojouvar-Louis Fonteno stadium in the Beaujoivar district, where Fonteno was the club's president for a long time.

Nantes forms the Derby de l'Atlantique with Bordeaux, the Derby de l'Ouest with Angers, and the Derby de la Bretagne with the Brittany teams of Ganga, Rennes, Lorient and Brest.

The capital of Brittany is Rennes, and the Rennes Sports Club Football Club was founded in 1901 as their home stadium Roazhon Park, the Breton name for Rennes.

The second largest city in Brittany is Brest, the capital of the department of Finistère, which means "end of the land", and it is indeed the westernmost department of France, bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

Because the number of the province of Finistair is number 29, the Brest Sports Club, founded in 1950, added the number "29" to the visual symbol, in addition, the S in the logo refers to the sports club (Stade, refer to the official account of Ligue 1 here, because I did not find stade in the French dictionary meaning "sports club"), B refers to Brest (Brestois, the adjective form of Brest).

Brest is not only the most western Ligue 1 team at present, even farther west than all the Premier League and Soviet Premier League teams today, but they also sponsor an amateur team in the Western Hemisphere, the Brest Sports Club in New York, which can be described as "heart to the west".

Brest has recently been pushing ahead with the construction of a new home stadium (not yet laying the foundation), which is now home to the former mayor of the Francis Le Bray Stadium, with a capacity of about 15,000 people.

Brest is the main anchorage of the French Atlantic Fleet, and its southeastern Lorient is known as "La ville aux cinq ports" because of its functions covering military, freight, passenger transport, tourism and fishing, and even Lorient Football Club is directly nicknamed "Cod".

Lorient's home stadium is the former mayor of the Yves Arematt Stadium (capacity of about 18,000 people), who has been the deputy president of the National Assembly and is considered a deputy national leader.

IX. Corsica

In addition to the Continental 19s, Ligue 1 currently has an island team, Napoleon's hometown of Ajaccio Athletic, whose club logo features a Moorish on the top left and a bear on the top right, although at first glance it looks a bit like a tiger.

Ajaccio's home stadium, which has a capacity of around 10,500 people, is the smallest Ligue 1 stadium today, named after former mayor François Coty. Coty was a distant relative of Napoleon and the founder of Coty perfume.

Ajaccio Showo's rival Ajaccio Gazelek also played in Ligue 1 (2015-16), so what does "Gazélec" mean? If you search directly, you will find that the word is not found in English, French, Italian or Corsican dictionaries, and Chinese information is rarely discussed.

After careful inquiry, I came to the answer - one of the origins of Ajacques Chao Gazelek was the corporate club set up by the joint service department of Gazf and EDF, so "Gaz" and "Élec" were combined into "Gazelek" and added to the team's naming.

Due to the weakness of Ajaccio Gazelek, Sporting Bastia are the only Corsican team to win the French Super League (1972) and the French Cup (1980–81) with Ajaccio Atletico.

X. Discussion and prospects

On the whole, compared with the Bundesliga, which is strong in the west and weak in the east, Serie A in the north and weak, and the Premier League in London, the geographical distribution of Ligue 1 clubs is relatively balanced, and only 3 of the 13 local regions do not have top-level league teams; At the same time, the region with the most Ligue 1 teams is only 3 teams, and there is no gathering area that stands out.

Another feature of Ligue 1 is that there is no one-city derby, and one of the reasons is that many teams need financial subsidies from local governments, and if there are multiple clubs in a city, each of them does not share much money.

The second reason was the Vichy regime, which passed an executive order requiring only one major football club in a region, and many teams merged. In addition, the Vichy Football Association can still be selected as one of the world's three most strange football associations, and they even changed the time of each game to 80 minutes at one point (see the "History of French Football" published by the author).

In order to improve the competitiveness of the league and increase the revenue that individual clubs receive from professional football leagues at the end of the season, Ligue 1 will have only 18 teams from the 2023-24 season, like the Bundesliga.

In order to match the contraction of Ligue 1, only the champions and runners-up can be promoted in this season's Ligue 2, and the top two are Le Havre in Normandy and Bordeaux in the new Aquitaine region, and if they are promoted to Ligue 1 next season, the "Ligue 1 fracture zone" that stabs France will be eliminated.

France is the runner-up of the World Cup in Qatar, and after talking about it, the next theme is naturally the current champion, Argentina, and the first thing to discuss is the Aliga team in Buenos Aires City.

Yes, you read that right, Argentina's top football league is no longer called Superliga, and is now officially known as the Liga Profesional de Fútbol de la AFA Torneo Binance 2023, abbreviated as Argentine Primera División, sponsored by Binance).

The above is the 115th issue of football geography of the original picture description, welcome to comment, like and forward, and explore the truth with you!

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