Can underdogs Lille beat Lyon and Marseille to Ligue 1 title?

The Ligue 1 or Ligue Un is more competitive than a few years ago, and that can only be good for the game. But is it open enough for an unfancied team like Lille to win it all?

Professional Football Players Observatory (PFPO) and RunningBall developed a new statistics model for football and the model helped predict the probable national champions in Europe’s top five leagues in 2011.

Before we go and look at the champion and the rest of the league table, you can take a look at the complete list of the teams by clicking on the image and for more details on how the predictions work, click here.

Champion: Lille OSC

What? Lille? Seriously? That’s what I thought initially.

Lille OSC plays in Ligue 1, for starters and an average football fan can probably not name a single player who is currently playing for them.

Eric Abidal of Barcelona spent two season at Lille before moving to Lyon. Michel Bastos of Lyon previously played for Lille.

If Lille is to win the league, it will only be their third title in the 67 year history of the club and the first since 1954. Surprisingly, their first Ligue 1 title came after only one year of their existence in 1945/1946. Just a reminder, World War 2 ended in 1945 and France was right in the middle of it.

Lille’s biggest threat are of course the conventional domestic giants Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux with 22 league titles between them.

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Or go back to main: 2010/2011 League Champions.