Off-field troubles continue to make life difficult for Sochaux on the pitch. The former Peugeot factory side, who have spent almost 70 years in the top flight of French football, are now set to be sold by their Chinese owners to another group from China. Those currently at the helm clearly do not have the appetite to lead the team into a sixth consecutive campaign in Ligue 2. At least they will not be in the third tier next season, though. Les Lionceaux went into the final day of the campaign in the relegation play-off place and still at risk of going down automatically, possibly straight into oblivion. In the end they survived thanks to a 3-1 win at home to Grenoble, in a match played before an empty Stade Bonal as a punishment for a pitch invasion a couple of weeks previously.
Fans have been desperately unhappy with the way their club has been run, and the decision to put a Spanish consortium in charge at the beginning of the season backfired badly. A Spanish coach, Jose Manuel Aira, was fired in late November with the team in the bottom three. Former player Omar Daf was given the reins and did just enough to keep the team up, although they had the worst attack in the division with a paltry 24 goals scored.
Bosnian striker Ermedin Demirovic left in January when his loan from Alaves in Spain was cut short, but he remained their leading scorer with four league goals. They were handicapped by an injury to talented Cameroon international defensive midfielder Jeando Fuchs, who missed much of the second half of the campaign, and Daf has since been handed an extension to his contract. Fuchs and other young talents to come from the club's renowned academy will undoubtedly move on as offers come in. Midfielder Lucien Agoume, 17, and France under-21 international goalkeeper Maxence Prevot are among those who will be of interest to other clubs, and it remains to be seen just what kind of state Sochaux will be in next season. At least they will still be in Ligue 2.
