French League 8th Round Up

After eight rounds of games in France, Bourges and Valenciennes opened up a three-match gap to the two teams in third place. Both clubs meet this weekend in the big clash of the week. With only four teams qualifying for the championship play-off at the end of the season Bourges and Valenciennes are currently looking comfortable.

Villeneuve d’Ascq and Challes-les-Eaux, despite losing over the weekend, occupy third and fourth place with identical records 5-3. Yet Villeneuve is sitting in third place because they won the first meeting against Challes.

Only one game is separating the teams from fifth to twelfth place. Mourenx last and only victory was on the opening day and after a series of seven defeats they firmly lie at the bottom of the table. Tarbes ended their negative series by beating Aix-en-Provence. These two teams are now equal with a record of 2-7. The next couple of weeks before the Christmas break is very important for the bottom teams as they need to improve their ranking quickly if they do not want to spend the rest of the season fighting against relegation.

In EuroLeague it cannot get any worse for French club sides with only 5 victories in 20 games. The clubs will now have to win the majority of their remaining games to qualify for the knock-out round. A full explanation of the difficulties in EuroLeague can be found on www.womensbasketball-in-france.com/lfb-1.html

It is not often that teams can lose games and yet qualify for the next round of competition. Here are Challes, Montpellier and Tarbes losing last week’s match in EuroCup but they have still qualified for the next round. Aix-en-Provence is the only French club to win in Europe last week. They have also qualified for the next round for EuroCup. This week’s EuroCup match will be the opportunity of all the teams to prepare for this weekend’s domestic action.

Current LF Standings