Why Amiens Deserve To Be Recognised As Europe's Team Of 2017

Why Amiens Deserve To Be Recognised As Europe's Team Of 2017
10:17, 15 Dec 2017

Forget Champions League winners Real Madrid, runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City or even England’s surprise package Burnley, the club that deserved the most praise of what they have achieved over the course of 2017 lies hidden, almost anonymous, in the rustbelt of France, around 100 kilometres north of Paris.

Amiens started season 2015-16 with the smallest budget in Ligue 2 but confounded expectations by firing themselves into the top flight with a goal five minutes into stoppage time on the final day of the season.

Emmanuel Bourgaud’s strike, and the ensuing celebrations, sparked a brief viral interest in the little Somme club, yet what they have achieved since then has been arguably even more spectacular, with head coach Christophe Pellisier’s side now setting about establishing themselves among the elite.

Once again Amiens find themselves with the smallest budget among their peers – nearly 22 times smaller than that of PSG - yet at virtually the halfway mark of the season they find themselves 11th in the table, six points clear of the automatic relegation positions and with a Coupe de la Ligue quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain to look forward to at the beginning of January.

For a club that is 116 years old but has no greater honour than the Division 3 title of 1978, these are exciting times.

“Hell was predicted for us,” midfielder Thomas Monconduit told So Foot last month, but while one club finds themselves detached having made one of the worst starts in modern French football history, that is Metz and not mid-table Amiens.

Pelissier has been the man to fashion the club into their current position, driving them up from the third tier to the first in a matter of months.

Their plan has been long clear; if the organisation and mentality is correct, results will follow. It is a formula that worked for the coach at Luzenac, a club even smaller than Amiens, whom he led into the second flight only for things to go sour due to off-field difficulties.

He is a coach with a track record of extracting the maximum from apparently modest players, and while these have largely been unrecognised journeyman professionals, he has worked his magic with Gael Kakuta this season, offering the former Chelsea prodigy and opportunity back to the top. His secret has been simply to make his players feel as comfortable as possible.

Speaking to Courrier Picard, Kakuta, who spurned the opportunity to move back to the Premier League with Swansea to instead join the little French side, said: “I feel very good here. It's a beautiful city. I like the tranquillity, it's a super quiet corner of the world. That's all I ask. My son is going to school here. He's made friends and everyone is happy at home. It motivates me.”

This is a club where the relationship between the backroom staff and players is very strong, and while it has got the best out of 26-year-old Kakuta, who has three goals and four assist in the league, it has worked with the remainder of the squad too.

“We’re close not only with the coach, but with all the staff,” Monconduit said. “We’ve built something here from three years. They’re the staff but they’re also friends. We’ve had great times together, been through incredible moments.”

And for many of these players, whose careers have known more downs than ups, they retain a comforting grounded nature in the often bizarre domain of top-level football.

“There are times when I feel I’m not part of the Ligue 1 world,” Monconduit, who spent a year without a club after suffering an injury, admitted.

“I draw a Peugeot 207, my first and only car, but currently I want a 106!” he joked.

In a town in France’s rustbelt that until recently has been wracked with employment concerns over the potential closure of the local Whirlpool factory, which had threatened with relocation to Poland, the success story of the football club has been a welcome relief in a difficult year.

That the club has achieved their success with such a sense of humility and unity has only hastened the bond to the supporters. Theirs is a feel-good footballing story for the ages.

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