Angers

Raymond Kopa started his career at the club in the late 1940s, years before Real Madrid and the Ballon d'Or made him one of the most decorated Frenchmen the game has produced. Angers gave him nothing of what came after, only the first pitch he played on, and the stadium now carries his name as the clearest reminder of that connection.

The club traces back to 1919, when it was founded on 10 October under a different name tied to a local credit institution before settling on Sporting Club de l'Ouest. Its football side folded in 1924, came back in 1929 through a merger with Club Doyenné Sports, and absorbed players from the disbanded Club Sportif Jean-Bouin in 1931. The name Angers Sporting Club de l'Ouest, and the shorthand Le SCO by which the city knows it, was only fixed in 1989.

Four times the club has won the second division and gone up: 1968/69, 1975/76, 1977/78, 1992/93. Each promotion tells the same story from a different decade, a side built to survive at the top rather than dominate it. Désiré Doué passed through the academy before his move to Paris Saint-Germain. Sidiki Cherif and Prosper Petrus were central to the run that returned Angers to Ligue 1 for the 2025-26 season.