It was another brief sojourn in the second tier for Red Star, but it was a disastrous and chaotic campaign in so many ways and they will be back in the third division again next season as they continue their existence as a yo-yo club.
The famous old team from Saint-Ouen, just to the north of Paris, have spent three of the last four campaigns in Ligue 2, but on each occasion they have been denied the right to stage games in their crumbling old Stade Bauer. Two years ago they hosted matches at the Stade Jean-Bouin in Paris, a rugby ground, and never got to grips with it. They were relegated.
This time they returned to the Stade Pierre-Brisson in Beauvais, an hour north of the capital, where they gave a good account of themselves in the 2015-16 season, finishing fifth. This time they started poorly, winning only one of their opening nine matches, and never recovered. Coach Regis Brouard, kept on after leading the team to promotion, was sacked in late October and replaced by the veteran Faruk Hadzibegic. There were some positive results - a late equaliser to draw away at Paris FC in the derby sending a big away support wild, and a home win against Lens early in the new year - but such results were few and far between. They dropped back to the bottom in mid-February, two-thirds of the way through the season, and never climbed above that spot again. Hadzibegic left during the March international break, and both Vincent Doukantie and Christian Caminiti had stints in charge as Red Star struggled on to the end. They won just seven games and scored only 28 goals in 38 matches.
Experienced signings like Nicolas Douchez and Clement Chantome did not have the desired impact, and striker Oussama Abdeldjelil - a January signing from the lower leagues who scored five goals in the second half of the campaign - was a rare bright spark. He may now leave to remain in Ligue 2 next season, with Red Star turning to a new coach in Vincent Bordot to lead their attempt to win promotion next time around, when they will be back at the Stade Bauer.
