Ligue 1 Football Disasters: Toulouse, Montpellier, Angers

Last Updated: May 2026

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Ligue 1 Football Disasters: Toulouse, Montpellier and Angers

Toulouse hold the all-time Ligue 1 record for fewest points in a season: 13, from a campaign ended by a pandemic, a points-per-game ruling, and a court battle they won but could not turn into survival. Montpellier — Ligue 1 champions in 2012 — were relegated in 2024-25 with 79 goals conceded, 1 clean sheet, and part of their own stadium on fire. Angers in 2022-23 appointed a manager whose “management by terror” conduct had been publicly exposed before he ever took the job. Three clubs. Three seasons. Three completely different ways to fall apart in French football.

Key Facts

Quick context before you watch:

Toulouse 2019-20: 13 points from 28 games — the lowest points total in Ligue 1 history. One point in their final 18 matches before Covid ended the season.
Montpellier 2024-25: 16 points, 79 goals conceded, 1 clean sheet from 34 games. Relegated on 26 April 2025, ending 16 consecutive seasons in Ligue 1.
Angers 2022-23: 18 points, 28 defeats from 38 games — the most losses by any club in a single modern Ligue 1 season. Relegated with five games to spare.
The Stade de la Mosson Fire: Montpellier’s own supporters launched flares in protest against Saint-Étienne in March 2025. Part of the East Stand caught fire. The match was abandoned and awarded to Saint-Étienne.
Angers appointed Abdel Bouhazama as permanent manager on 5 January 2023. He left sixty-one days later. They had won zero matches under him.
Angers Bounce Back: Alexandre Dujeux guided them back to Ligue 1 at the first attempt in 2023-24.

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The Worst Ligue 1 Teams of All Time

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The Three Collapses That Each Looked Nothing Like the Last

Toulouse 2019-20: Thirteen Points, Ten Games Never Played, and One Legal Victory That Changed Nothing

Toulouse’s 2019-20 season was already a disaster before the world outside noticed. By October 2019, Alain Casanova had been replaced by Antoine Kombouare following a run of results that left Les Violets bottom of the table. Kombouare won his first game, then lost ten in a row, then was dismissed on 6 January 2020. Denis Zanko took over a side that had accumulated one point in their last 18 matches. Then the pandemic arrived, the LFP froze the table on 30 April 2020, and Toulouse were relegated on 13 points from 28 games — with ten matches still to play.

The legal fight that followed was genuine, and Toulouse won it — technically. On 9 June 2020, France’s Conseil d’Etat, the supreme administrative court, suspended the relegation of Toulouse and Amiens, ruling that the LFP had no automatic right to demote clubs on the basis of a curtailed table. The reprieve lasted fourteen days. On 23 June, the ruling was overturned, the clubs voted to maintain a 20-team Ligue 1, and Toulouse were relegated with 13 points on the board, a strong sense of injustice, and a court ruling that had been of no practical use whatsoever.

What makes the Toulouse story distinct from almost any other relegation in European football is that the club never had the chance to save themselves on the pitch. They were ten points behind second-bottom Amiens with ten games remaining when the season ended. Whether those ten games would have made a difference is an unanswerable question. That they were never played is a fact Toulouse supporters have not forgotten.

Montpellier 2024-25: The Title Winners’ Collapse, the Stadium Fire, and the Captain’s Moment

Montpellier won Ligue 1 in 2011-12 with the 13th-largest budget in the division — one of the most unlikely title victories in the league’s modern history. By 2024-25, their 50th-anniversary season as a club and their 16th consecutive in Ligue 1, the gap between that triumph and their daily reality could not have been wider. Ligue 1’s new broadcasting deal had delivered 47% less gross income to clubs than the prior cycle, and Montpellier’s expected budget shortfall reached approximately 20 million euros against a total budget of around 52 million euros. Before a ball had been kicked, the season was already in trouble.

Michel Der Zakarian lasted until a 5-0 home defeat to Marseille in October, which confirmed Montpellier were bottom and accelerating downward. His replacement was Jean-Louis Gasset — a Montpellier-born manager, son of club co-founder Bernard Gasset, who came out of retirement because the club needed him. “Maybe I’m a football has-been,” he said at one point during the season. It was not a rallying cry. In December, academy graduate and club captain Téji Savanier was confronted by a Le Puy supporter — a fourth-tier club — after a Coupe de France defeat. “Last in Ligue 1 — does that hurt?” “When you’re being paid 210,000 euros a month, no.” The club stripped him of the captaincy within days.

In March 2025, trailing 0-2 at home to Saint-Étienne, Montpellier’s ultras launched flares onto the pitch. Part of the East Stand caught fire. The match was abandoned, then awarded to Saint-Étienne by the disciplinary commission. Gasset stepped down in April. Relegation was confirmed on 26 April. The final tally: 16 points, 79 goals conceded, 1 clean sheet. The club that won Ligue 1 in 2012 had become, in the words of their own manager, simply not at the required level. Gasset passed away on 26 December 2025, aged 72. His last job in football was trying to save the club his father helped build.

Angers 2022-23: The Appointment, the Exposure, and the Sixty-One Days

Angers SCO spent eight consecutive seasons in Ligue 1 between 2015 and 2023, built on defensive resilience and the ability to grind out results against better-resourced clubs. The summer of 2022 dismantled that foundation efficiently: the club delayed contract renewals across the squad, key players left on free transfers, and the team that reported for pre-season was thinner in experience and character than any Angers side in years.

Gérald Baticle could not settle on a formation for a squad that was fragile from the start. A 3-0 home defeat to Marseille in October triggered a seven-match losing run that effectively ended his tenure. He was sacked on 22 December 2022. Abdel Bouhazama stepped in as interim, then was confirmed permanently on 5 January 2023. The problem was that his conduct during his time running the club’s youth academy had already been documented in Ouest-France: accusations of humiliating, insulting, and threatening young players, described as “management by terror.” President Saïd Chabane had been aware of the complaints. He promoted Bouhazama anyway.

Sixty-one days later, on 7 March 2023, Bouhazama was gone — following a 5-0 defeat at Montpellier and the reporting of deeply inappropriate pre-match comments he had made to his squad concerning a player charged with sexual assault. Alexandre Dujeux oversaw the final stretch, ended a winless run stretching from September to April with a 1-0 win against Lille on 8 April 2023, and gathered enough points to avoid a record-low tally. Angers were relegated with 18 points and 28 defeats — the most losses by any club in a single modern Ligue 1 season. The small mercy: Dujeux was retained, guided them back to Ligue 1 the following season, and the club are competing in the top flight again in 2025-26.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Worst Ligue 1 Teams

What is the Ligue 1 football disasters documentary about?

The Ligue 1 Football Disasters documentary from The Football Documentary Channel covers three of the worst Ligue 1 seasons in recent history: Toulouse’s pandemic-era relegation in 2019-20, in which the club hold the all-time Ligue 1 record of 13 points from 28 games; Montpellier’s collapse in 2024-25, in which the 2012 title winners conceded 79 goals and had part of their stadium catch fire; and Angers’ chaotic 2022-23 season, in which the club set a modern Ligue 1 record with 28 defeats. The documentary is free to watch at youtube.com/@footballdocumentaries.

Is the Ligue 1 football disasters documentary free to watch?

The Ligue 1 Football Disasters documentary from The Football Documentary Channel is free to watch on YouTube at youtube.com/@footballdocumentaries. All videos on the channel are free, including the companion documentaries on the worst teams in Premier League history and the worst teams in Serie A history.

Why was Toulouse FC relegated in 2019-20 without finishing the season?

Toulouse were relegated in 2019-20 because the LFP ended the season at matchday 28 on 30 April 2020, with France banning professional sports until September due to Covid-19. A points-per-game calculation placed Toulouse 20th. Although France’s Conseil d’Etat suspended the relegation on 9 June 2020, that ruling was overturned on 23 June when the clubs voted to maintain a 20-team Ligue 1, and Toulouse were administratively demoted with 13 points — the lowest total in Ligue 1 history — and ten games never played.

What happened at Montpellier’s stadium during the 2024-25 Ligue 1 season?

During a home match against Saint-Étienne on 16 March 2025, Montpellier’s ultras launched flares onto the pitch in protest at the team’s form. Part of the East Stand caught fire, smoke filled the Stade de la Mosson, and the match was abandoned. The LFP disciplinary commission subsequently awarded the result to Saint-Étienne. The incident became one of the defining images of Montpellier’s relegation season — a club in freefall, and a ground in visible disrepair.

What did Montpellier’s captain Teji Savanier say that cost him the armband?

Montpellier club captain Téji Savanier was confronted by a Le Puy supporter during a Coupe de France defeat in December 2024. Asked whether finishing last in Ligue 1 hurt, Savanier replied: “When you’re being paid 210,000 euros a month, no.” The club stripped him of the captaincy within days. The moment crystallised a season in which the gap between the players’ circumstances and the fans’ suffering had become impossible to ignore.

Who was Abdel Bouhazama and why did Angers appoint him as manager in 2023?

Abdel Bouhazama had served as head of Angers’ youth academy before being handed the first-team job as interim following the sacking of Gérald Baticle, then confirmed permanently on 5 January 2023. The appointment was controversial from the start: reporting by Ouest-France had documented accusations of intimidating and threatening behaviour toward young players during his academy tenure, described as “management by terror.” President Saïd Chabane was aware of the complaints and promoted him regardless. Bouhazama left the club sixty-one days after his permanent appointment, following a 5-0 defeat and the reporting of inappropriate pre-match comments concerning a player charged with sexual assault.

How many managers did Toulouse, Montpellier and Angers each use during their worst season?

Toulouse used three managers in 2019-20: Alain Casanova, Antoine Kombouare, and Denis Zanko. Montpellier used three in 2024-25: Michel Der Zakarian, Jean-Louis Gasset, and Zoumana Camara. Angers used three in 2022-23: Gérald Baticle, Abdel Bouhazama, and Alexandre Dujeux. All three clubs rotated through exactly three managers in their worst seasons — a pattern that speaks to how quickly each collapse lost the board’s confidence in any single solution.

Which of the three Ligue 1 clubs had the worst defensive record in their disaster season?

Montpellier’s 2024-25 season was the most defensively catastrophic: 79 goals conceded from 34 games, a rate of 2.3 per match, with just 1 clean sheet across the entire campaign. Angers conceded 81 goals in 2022-23 but across a full 38-game season, a rate of 2.1 per match. Toulouse conceded 58 in 28 games in 2019-20, though the curtailed season makes direct comparison difficult. All three clubs appear in the top ten worst points totals in Ligue 1 history, according to StatMuse.

Did Toulouse, Montpellier and Angers bounce back after their Ligue 1 relegations?

Toulouse returned to Ligue 1 in 2022, won the Coupe de France in 2023, and are competing in the top flight in 2025-26. Angers were promoted back to Ligue 1 at the first attempt under Alexandre Dujeux in 2023-24, and are also in Ligue 1 in 2025-26. Montpellier were relegated in April 2025 and are in Ligue 2 in 2025-26, though they were 4th in the second tier in early 2026, suggesting a potential return is achievable.

How does the Ligue 1 disasters documentary compare to the Premier League disasters documentary?

Both documentaries are part of The Football Documentary Channel’s Football Disasters series. The Premier League disasters documentary covers Derby County’s 11-point season in 2007-08 and Southampton’s 30-defeat campaign in 2024-25 — the two worst seasons in Premier League history by points. The Ligue 1 disasters documentary covers three separate collapses across different seasons, connected by the structural pressures facing smaller clubs in French football rather than a single record battle. Both are free to watch at youtube.com/@footballdocumentaries.

What other football disaster documentaries has The Football Documentary Channel made?

The Football Disasters series covers record-breaking collapses across European football. Alongside the Ligue 1 documentary, the channel has made documentaries on the worst teams in Premier League history — Derby County and Southampton — and the worst teams in Serie A history, covering Ancona, Salernitana, Chievo, and Pescara. All are free to watch at youtube.com/@footballdocumentaries.

Where can I watch the Ligue 1 football disasters documentary for free?

The Ligue 1 Football Disasters documentary is free to watch on YouTube at youtube.com/@footballdocumentaries. The channel covers football history for a serious audience — rivalries, mavericks, and disasters from across European football. No subscription is required.

The Worst Ever Ligue 1 Teams

For the stories about Toulouse, Montpellier, and Angers – and all important FAQs – read the companion deep dive: