Hurry! Read this while we’re still in 1st place!

By: Richard | August 17th, 2008

Nantes 1 (Keseru 66)
AS Monaco 1 (Meriem 4)

Two points thrown down the drain. Yes, this is the sort of match Monaco frequently lost last year, but Nantes were a disorganized mess in the first half and if we had a real #9, we could have put the match out of reach at halftime. Adu is still at the Olympics and new signing Dario Simic did not play, we were also without Adriano, Cufre, Alonso, Gakpe, and Bernardi, all through injury.

The start Nantes made was the exact opposite of what I expected in their first home match in Ligue 1 since promotion. Instead of coming out all guns blazing, they seemed a bit flat and nervous. Jerko Leko brought down a cross on the right side of goal and Heurtebis came out to challenge, the Croatian dribbled the Nantes keeper and chipped an easy center for Meriem to head home unmarked in the fourth minute.

Unfortunately, Monaco did little with the intiative they gained with that early goal. They had the run of play but only managed to scrape together a few half-chances. Pino in particular was energetic but ineffective. More than once I thought “If only we had signed Klasnic instead of Nantes…”

Slowly Nantes started to play themselves back into the game until they scored the sort of equalizing goal that makes you want to kick in your television. Heurtebis blasted the ball downfield, it fell awkwardly to Klasnic, who attempted to lob the onrushing Ruffier near the edge of the area. Klasnic’s shot was off-balance and off-target, but it fell in exactly the right place for Keseru to gently head it into an empty goal.

The match then produced the atmosphere I was expecting all along. Menez came on for Pino and somehow managed to be even more invisible than the man he replaced. There was a flurry of yellow cards, highlighted (lowlighted?) by Babovic deliberately stamping on Mongongu, how he didn’t see red I’ll never know. Keseru had a great opportunity to win it for the hosts at the end but he was denied by Ruffier.

Oh, well. We are top of the table for a few hours. Next week Caen come to visit…