Grenoble

May 2025 ended a run that had lasted almost a decade: Grenoble had not lost to FC Annecy since 2016, seven wins and two draws in the fixture they call the Alpico, and then lost 1-10.

The club now known as GF38 traces itself to a merger of Union athlétique grenobloise, Racing Club de Grenoble and other local sports societies on 1 September 1911. What followed was decades of renaming and remerging — Dauphiné in 1984, Isère in 1990, a fold-in with FC Jojo in 1992, Olympique Grenoble Isère in 1993 — until the current structure settled in 1997, the "38" marking the Isère département. In 2004 the club became the first in French football bought by a foreign owner, the Japanese firm Index Holdings. That ownership left a debt of €2.9m and falsified accounts behind it, and on 1 July 2011 Grenoble went into judicial liquidation, dropping to the fifth tier. Back up through CFA, a CFA title in 2017, then a play-off win over Bourg-en-Bresse in May 2018 that returned the club to Ligue 2.

Olivier Giroud came through between 2005 and 2008, Florian Thauvin two years behind him, both later champions of the world with France in 2018. Further back, Youri Djorkaeff wore the shirt from 1984 to 1989, well before his own World Cup medal, and his brother Jean managed the club in the early 1980s.