For the third year in a row, Montpellier is going through an uncertain end to the championship, far from its objective of having a peaceful season among the top ten. Struggling since October and the interruption of the match against Clermont for a firecracker, Michel Der Zakarian’s team even plunged to the play-off position, at its lowest level in eight years, after the draw conceded at Mosson against Strasbourg (2-2) on March 3. Having risen to a precarious 13th place, it now joins a “gruppetto” of seven teams, from Toulouse to Metz, which are held within six points.
A slump or the start of a decline? Téji Savanier has blended into the grayness of Hérault since the start but leads the revolt to stay in Ligue 1. “We’re not going to hide, I’m having a less good season than the previous ones. Despite my six goals and six assists, I feel good on the pitch. I don’t have a precise explanation,” he says on the club’s website. If Savanier, on the verge of thirty (32 years), shines less, or intermittently, he does not give up. Following the frustrating and worrying defeat conceded to Mosson against Lyon (2-1), one of Montpellier’s oldest players sounded the revolt.
Attached to his training club, where he returned in 2019, he came out of his media discretion to generate awareness among a constantly renewed workforce. “There are 13 matches left, we have 13 finals left,” he warned in mid-February. “We have always known this club in Ligue 1, we must leave it in Ligue 1. We will fight to keep it there,” he promised. To experience a 16th season in a row at the highest level, Montpellier is counting on its experienced playmaker, always influential on the pitch and in the locker room. Over the last six matches, Savanier, with his technique honed in the streets of his neighborhood, has just scored three goals and managed two assists.
During the last victory in Nice (2-1), the Hérault strategist was still involved in both goals thanks to his know-how on set pieces. Scorer from the penalty spot against the Polish wall Marcin Bulka, he was also responsible for defender Jean-Clair Todibo’s own goal. Reassuring for his partners, Savanier remains the guide and technical guarantor of a team lacking in efficiency, like his Nigerian center forward Akor Adams.
Linked to the MHSC until 2026, Savanier, solicited in the past by major European clubs, still enjoys Montpellier, his hometown, and the Gély city, the gypsy neighborhood of his childhood, where he continues to live, far from the canons of the football stars. And he wants to do everything to stay in Ligue 1.
