Football Season Guide

Having been relegated to the Championnat National only 1 year after their first historic campaign among the professionals in 2017-2018, it took Quevilly Rouen Metropole 3 years before achieving a new promotion. At the end of a season during which they made the top 4 in week 4 and never left it, they made the Ligue 2 thanks to a second place, 8 points from SC Bastia, the undisputable leaders who defeated them in both meetings. Bruno Irles was the architect of this promotion at his first time of asking and he confirmed to be gifted with the Midas touch: he had already triumphed in the Championnat National the previous year with Pau FC and, in his only other experience as head coach, had been doing wonders at Sheriff Tiraspol in Moldova before being sacked quite mysteriously. Unlike what happened at Pau, Irles, who adopts a 4-4-2 or a 4-2-3-1 formation preferably, decided to stay on at Quevilly also in the new season and so he will be at his first experience in the professional football in France. To this date, Quevilly, who rely on an extremely limited budget, saw the departure of a great bunch of players but only two of them could end up being missed. In fact, they lost Jung, the top scorer of the Championnat National with 21 goals, and 21-year-old centre-back Nade. Other than them, midfielders Pinson and Toussaint had also enjoyed relevant playing time in the past campaign. In terms of new signings, they only managed to sign Gbellé, an attacking midfielder with no experience in Ligue 2 who could represent a decent back-up, and Dekoke, a left-back who could also act at centre-back and could replace the departed Nade. On the other hand, Yann Boé-Kane will provide much-needed muscles in the middle of the park. With just 15 players in the squad, Quevilly are still incomplete: they need depth in all the departments and they must sign at least a striker capable of making them forget Jung. Quevilly will have to play in Caen their initial 2 games and this might affect their start to the season.