The resurrection of Martigues or the sensation of the season in Championnat National

Who would have believed it last August? The current leader of the Championnat National with 40 points after 22 league games, small club Martigues FC are closer than ever to promotion to Ligue 2, 21 years after playing their last game at this level. What’s more, despite one of the smallest budgets in the Championship, the club from the south is rising from the ashes, 27 years after its last appearance in Ligue 1.

With its playmaker, the young 22-year-old Frenchman Amine Hemia, author of seven goals since the start of the season, as well as the experienced Foued Kadir, who has come through OM or Rennes, the club has lost only one of their last 20 league games in the PACA region. A return to the Championnat National 10 years later, a return to Ligue 2 27 years later?

A real feat that today leads Martigues to the gates of Ligue 2. If they were to be promoted, the feat would be all the more resounding for this just-promoted club. After finishing top of Group C in National 2 (N2 has 4 groups A, B, C, D), Martigues returned to the National last summer for the first time since 2012.

For the last two years, the team coached by Grégory Poirier has been experiencing a real fairy tale. He arrived in May 2021 as Eric Chelle’s successor and is no stranger to this incredible resurrection.

The age of madness is over

Resurrection:: a word not too strong when you know that the Provençal club first had to balance the books and restore the financial equilibrium undermined by the old management. Only from November 2020 could President Nersessian (who arrived in 2018) have ambitions for his club.

But the time of madness is now far away for Martigues, which has spent nothing on the transfer market, has made some good moves, such as the arrival of those released from Chartres – Amine Zemia (24) or Romain Montiel (27), also came free from Sedan Raphaël Calvet (28).

It was Sedan that the Martigues players managed to beat in their last league fixture, having previously secured a point against Villefranche, who are fighting to stay in the competition, who are the fifth last team from the bottom of this prestigious competition (FFF farm), with a whopping 6 teams dropping down to the lower, but still very high quality Championnat National N2 this season.

As we’ve reported before, the organisation of FFF football is very thoughtfully dynamic, with competitions being well oxygenated, giving new faces a chance and consistently separating the wheat from the chaff in all aspects.

In the N2 level and above, from the perspective of Czech football, a poor quality player will not hold his own. Moreover, everything is insured by the financial rebound of the French professional competitions, to which the best teams are recruited by their amateur unspoiled and hard-tested nominees.

Source: FC Martigues, FFF