On Thursday, the Ligue de Football Professionnel published the fixture list for the 2020-21  Ligue 1 season. After a break of five months, football will return to France on the weekend of 23 August. OGC Nice will host RC Lens.

In May 2015, Les Sang et Or made their last away trip in the top flight, to the Allianz Riviera. Five years later, Les Artésiens will mark their return to Ligue 1 with a trip to Nice. Patrick Vieira’s side will start the 2020-21 season on home soil against the newly promoted side. After hosting Lens over the weekend of 23 August, and before the visit of PSG, the current French champions on Matchday 4 (20 September), they will be on the road for Matchdays 2 and 3, to Strasbourg and Montpellier respectively.

November will be the month of derbies. Against Monaco at home (8 November) then at the  Vélodrome on 22 November. While Dante and his teammates will end the calendar year with two home encounters, on 20 December (Lyon) and 23 December (Lorient).

Two matches at home to end the year and then two away matches to kick off 2021 during an extremely busy January, that will only get busier with the cup matches that will take place. The Nice fans will need to wait until the start of February and a midweek encounter (3 February), before they can travel to the Louis II.

In the spring, Le Gym will host OM (21 March) and will then have two consecutive home encounters in the final sprint in May (Brest then Strasbourg on 16 May) before a final adventure in Lyon... like in 2012 (3-4), 2017 (3-3) or even 2018 (3-2).

 

The first half of the season will come to a close in 2021

This season, the league will stretch from 23 August 2020 until 23 May 2021, when Matchday 38 will take place in the usual way, with all matches starting at the same time. Five L1 matchdays will take place during the week (15, 17, 18, 20 and 23). The first half of the season will come to a close over the weekend of 9 January 2021, while the second half will begin on the weekend of 20 January.

 

Change of schedule

As a reminder, following the change of broadcaster, the schedule for Ligue 1 matches has been changed for this new season. The bulk of matches will take place on Sundays, with seven matches (1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 9pm), two on Saturdays (5pm and 9pm) and one on Fridays (9pm).

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