Bastia

The current generation had to learn that the hard way: relegated as far as the fourth tier, Championnat National 3, in 2017, the club spent four seasons rebuilding before winning the Championnat National in 2020–21 and returning to professional football.

The high point remains 1981, when Bastia won the Coupe de France, and 1978, when they reached the UEFA Cup final and lost to PSV Eindhoven. Claude Papi scored 117 goals for the club and still stands as its record marksman, while Charles Orlanducci made more appearances than anyone else, 429 in all.

Not every memory from Stade Armand-Cesari is about football. On 5 May 1992, a temporary stand collapsed before a Coupe de France semi-final against Olympique de Marseille, killing 18 to 19 people and injuring more than 2,300. The ground is still sometimes called Furiani because of it, and the disaster changed how French stadiums were built and inspected afterwards.

Derby Corse against AC Ajaccio settles the island's football arguments, sharper for the fact that there is only one other club on Corsica worth arguing about. Bastia's colours, blue and white, trace back to 1905, when the Sporting Club was formed on an island where football had to compete for attention with everything else Corsica is known for — and where a club needed a reason simply to exist before it needed a trophy cabinet.