Football: Le Grau-du-Roi aims for a podium finish in Regional 1

Capitaine la saison dernière, le gardien Eddy Vera est l’un des leaders. MIDI LIBRE – ERIC DOLADILLE

Cited among the favorite teams to play at the top of the table, ESGDR, with its new coaching tandem Marion – Peredes, hopes to do better than last season, which ended in 4th place.

Sometimes there are labels that are hard to remove. The one that the Grau-du-Roi players had on their backs during their two successive promotions, in Regional 2 in 2022, in Regional 1 in the summer of 2023, presenting them as the “PSG&rdquo of the division, was well attached to the jersey.

The PSG of the division

“Before arriving here, I heard a lot of things, like how the players were well paid. And this summer, we had to manage this aspect, underlines the new coach Morgan Marion, successor to Nicolas Guibal on the bench, in tandem with Sébastien Peredes. We are however very, very far from the ideas received by many in the region. In R2 or R3, it could be shocking but, here, in R1, it is far from being shocking and there are a lot of teams that have as much means, if not more than us."

This off-season, the club of president Grégory Mézy recruited "fewer names and a lot of young people", explains the former Vergèze technician (R3), semi-finalist of the Occitanie Cup with EPV.

“Boys who came for the project and not for what they were offered financially”

Abbou, Adell and Keita came as neighbours from Aigues-Mortes. Another recruit: Jordan Aidoud (ex-Alès in N3). In the “arrivals” column, we read for the rest the surnames Alla (Saint-Estève), Benlounasse (Nogueirense, Portugal), Chevet and Harizi (Vergèze), Julien (Castelnau), El Mardi (Vendargues) or even Renaudin (Selongey).

“We chose boys who came for the project that was presented to them and not for what was offered to them financially”, continues Marion. The 32-year-old technician, who will have his first experience at this level, knows he is expected and says he is impatient: “I have a lot to prove. From then on, we try to establish a framework for the players so that they feel that things have changed and that they know where we want to take them."

Do better than last season

Heading for the top of the table for ESGDR ? "There is no specific objective set, even if we know that it is an ambitious club, recalls a coach who, as player, had participated in the promotion of Grau to R2. We will try to do better than last season when we finished 4th."

In the wake of a few key players, goalkeeper Vera, El Amrani, Rezkallah, Braik, the striker Mouzaoui – "It was important to rely on players like that, who have known winning at the club and who will instill it in the new ones" (Marion) –, Le Grau-du-Roi has assets to assert. Without poker liar…

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