French Ligue 1 ~ Live Football Article

The French Ligue has been an all-professional football league since 1932. Since World WarII, the division has switched from 18 to 20 teams, with 20 being the current. The teams are: Valenciennes, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Saint-Etienne, Sochaux, Paris Saint-Germanin, Rennes, Nancy, Nice, Metz, Monaco, Lyon, Marseille, Lorient, Lille, Lens, Caen, Le Mans, Bordeaux, and Auxerre. The French Ligue 1 has faced three significant scandals in its history, which are: Olympique d'Antibes in 1933, Red Starin in the 1950's, and Olympique de Marseille in 1993. They have kept a good reputation every time through swift and severe punishment of the guilty parties. In a game standard points are three for a win, one for a draw, and none for a lose. They adopted the three point rule in the early 1990's. As of today the champions are Olympique Lyonnais. The longest unbeaten record in one season was Nantes in 1994-95. They also hold the record for the fewest loses in a season which was 1 in 1994-95. The biggest win was Sochaux against Valenciennes in 1935-36 with the score being 12 to 1. The coach with the most matches is Guy Roux with 890, from 1931-2000 and 2001-2005. Dell Onnis had the most goals with 299 from 1971-1986. Laurent Paganelli is the youngest player at age 15. The number one player with the most appearences is Jean-Luc Ettori, 602 games. From 1971-1986 Dell Onnis was the most highes goalscorer with it being 299. The new season opens up on August 4, 2007 through May 2007 . Fox World Sports is currently airing the games. The French Ligue 1 teams play each other twice, at home and away, during the season for 38 matches. Then at the end of the season the bottom three teams are regulated to ligue 2. The top three teams in legue 1 qulify for the Champions League. The original European Cup of 1955-1956 featured Real Madrid against Stade de Reims-Champagne, which finished in a 4-3 victory for the spanish side. In 2003 the then underdogs AS Monaco FC won in their group to advance to round 16. Highest scoring team in the 1959-1960 season was RC Paris, with 118 goals, 1948-1949 Lille with 102 goals. The highest attendance for a game was 8,086,774 in 2004-2005. There are two seven time most title holders, Jean-Michel Larqué and Hervé Revelli of Saint-Étienne, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1974, 1975, and 1976. Olympique Marseille and FC Nantes both have held the title eight times. FC Sochaux has played 2102 games.