By D. Crossan
A year on from his tragic death, Emiliano Sala will be remembered by supporters of Nantes and Bordeaux in Sunday’s emotional Derby de l’Atlantique.
FC Nantes – Girondins de Bordeaux 
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It is just over a year since Sala died in a plane crash on his way to Cardiff from Nantes, having been transferred to the Welsh club. To honour the striker’s memory both Nantes and Bordeaux – Sala’s first French club – will wear special shirts. Nantes’ is inspired by Argentina with the club explaining: “He dreamed of wearing the national side’s jersey and so for one league game the FC Nantes players will set the traditional yellow and green shirt to one side in order to play in blue and white… The profits from the sale of the shirts will go to the two Argentinian clubs Emiliano played for in his youth.”
Bordeaux’s shirt will feature an Argentinian flag below the club crest flanked by the player’s initials ES. A portrait of Sala, who played for Nantes from 2015 to 2019, will be placed in the centre circle during the warm-up, Les Canaris’ fans have a spectacular tifo ready and there’ll be a minute’s applause before kick-off. At all Nantes games the ninth minute sees the fans sing the Emiliano Sala song, while the club last February retired Sala’s number nine, apart from in Coupe de France games where the numbers have to go from one to 11 through to the quarter-finals.
Sala arrived at Bordeaux in 2010 and was toughened up by loan spells at Orléans and Niort. With the tall forward struggling to make his mark at Les Girondins a further loan spell followed at Caen for the second half of the 2014-2015 season. Five goals in 13 Ligue 1 Conforama appearances proved he could cut it in the top division and that encouraged Nantes to sign him for a bargain one million euros in the summer of 2015. After six league goals in his first season, Sala flourished and netted 12 times in both 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. 12 more Ligue 1 Conforama goals in just 19 games in 2018-2019 persuaded Cardiff Sala was the player to keep them in the Premier League. Tragically Sala never got that chance as the plane carrying him to Cardiff crashed into the Channel on January 21 2019. Sala was just 28 years old.
Sunday’s match is secondary to the Sala commemorations. Nantes go into Round 21 fourth in the table and with four wins in their last six league outings, while Bordeaux have faltered and lost their last four league matches to stand 13th, six points back from their weekend opponents. Moreover, Bordeaux fell at third-tier Pau just over a week ago in the round of 32 of the Coupe de France, leading coach Paulo Sousa to confess: “I feel ashamed after this result. We have a huge debt to our supporters.”
Nevertheless, Nantes boss Christian Gourcuff expressed his admiration for his Bordeaux counterpart. Gourcuff said: “What pleases me is that there’s a very clear style in terms of the organisation and the playing style. That pleases me a lot. It’s not about the pragmatism that we see a little bit everywhere.”
Probable Teams:
Nantes: (to follow)
Bordeaux: (to follow)
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