Saint-Étienne, candidate for the climb, missed his debut by being beaten at home by Grenoble on a goal scored in added time (1-0) on Saturday in the first match of the L2 season. At the end of a long balanced meeting, Abdoulie Sanyang, on receiving a cross, deceived the Saint-Etienne goalkeeper Gautier Larsonneur and cooled Geoffroy-Guichard (90 1).
The Greens had however believed to make the difference twice at the end of the match, but Gaëtan Charbonnier had seen his penalty pushed back by the goalkeeper of Grenoble Brice Maubleu (83rd) then a goal had been refused to Ibrahima Wadji for offside (86th) . The preparation of Laurent Batlles’ team has been disrupted by an epidemic of gastroenteritis which forced them to cancel their last friendly match against Montpellier last week.
She was also deprived of her left-back Niels Nkounkou, leaving for Eintracht Frankfurt. ASSE was undefeated against Grenoble in the last six meetings (4 wins, 2 draws). During the 2022-2023 season, the Greens finished in 8th place in the standings and the Grenoble club ranked 10th.