AS Nancy Lorraine

Nancy
Full nameAssociation Sportive Nancy Lorraine
Nickname(s)Les Chardons (The Thistles)[1]
Founded1967; 57 years ago (1967)
GroundStade Marcel Picot
Capacity20,087
OwnerChien Lee
Krishen Sud
[2]
ChairmanNicolas Holveck[3]
ManagerPablo Correa
LeagueChampionnat National
2023–24Championnat National, 6th of 18
Websitehttps://www.asnl.net/
Current season

Association Sportive Nancy Lorraine (French pronunciation: [asɔsjɑsjɔ̃ spɔʁtiv nɑ̃si lɔʁɛn]), known as AS Nancy Lorraine, and more commonly as Nancy, is a French football club founded in 1967 and based in Nancy, Grand Est. The club plays its home matches at the Stade Marcel Picot located in Tomblaine in the inner suburbs of Nancy, and currently competes in the Championnat National, the third tier of French football.

The club was founded in 1910 by Maurice de Vienne under the name of Union sportive Frontière, then was later renamed Association sportive Lorraine in 1928. In 1967, following the collapse of FC Nancy, the club created a professional section and as such changed its name to become Association Sportive Nancy Lorraine. The club currently plays at the Stade Marcel-Picot, a 20,000 seats capacity stadium located in the town of Tomblaine, where its head office is also located. The infrastructures of the training center are located within the forest of Haye business park, in Bois-de-Haye.

The club has won 7 titles until this day: the Coupe de France (1978), the Coupe de la Ligue (2006) and five Ligue 2 champion titles (1975, 1990, 1998, 2005 and 2016). The club also has three participations in European competitions to its credit: one participation in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1979 and two participations in the UEFA Europa League in 2007 and 2008.

In December 2020, Chien Lee, PMG, Partners Path Capital and Krishen Sud acquired AS Nancy Lorraine and Chien Lee became the chairman of the board,[4][5] replacing Jacques Rousselot who had been in charge since 1995.

ASNL is renowned as a club with a good training center. One of the club's most notable players is Michel Platini, the former president of UEFA. Platini began his career at the club in 1972, playing eight seasons with Nancy. He scored the only goal in the aforementioned Coupe de France final and won two French Player of the Year awards whilst playing with the club. Platini also established himself as a French international while at the club and went on to achieve numerous team and individual accolades after his departure from Nancy. He is considered to be, arguably, the club's greatest player ever and, upon entering the section of the club's official website showing Nancy's greats, a picture of a young Platini is displayed.[6] Other notable players to have played for ASNL include Mustapha Hadji, winner of the African Ballon d'Or in 1998, his brother Youssouf Hadji, with more than 300 matches in the colors of the club, Olivier Rouyer and Tony Vairelles. Other players have emerged or shown great promise at the club, such as Tony Cascarino, Jean-Michel Moutier, Roger Lemerre, Aleksandr Zavarov, Bernard Zénier, Clément Lenglet and Michaël Cuisance.

  1. ^ "#886 – AS Nancy Lorraine : les Chardons" (in French). Footnickname. 23 October 2022. Archived from the original on 24 October 2022. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
  2. ^ ""AS Nancy Lorraine: the three things to remember from the open letter published by Krishen Sud and Chien Lee"". Archived from the original on 11 August 2023. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
  3. ^ "Nancy Lorraine is pleased to announce the appointment of Nicolas Holveck as Executive Chairman". Archived from the original on 5 October 2023. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
  4. ^ “AS Nancy acquired by Chinese-American consortium”
  5. ^ ""AS Nancy Lorraine : Chien Lee officiellement président du conseil d'administration"". Archived from the original on 14 June 2024. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  6. ^ "Tous les anciens joueurs de l'ASNL". AS Nancy. Archived from the original on 30 April 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2011.