Which Ligue 1 teams will finish in the Champions League spot?

The French Ligue 1 remains one of the top competitions in the world and is widely considered one of Europe’s top five leagues.

Fans who troll the competition say it is a “farmer’s league” because of PSG’s dominance every season.

There is a huge gap between the Parisians and other clubs in the competition which is why those who call it the farmer’s league seem to be right.

But in fairness to Ligue 1, it is also one of the most unpredictable competitions around nowadays, especially its top four.

Apart from PSG, no other team in France is guaranteed a place in the top four every season and it has been an interesting development in that league.

Last term, Lens secured an automatic Champions League spot and forced Olympique Marseille to the playoffs, which they failed to make progress, leaving France with just two teams in the competition.

Next term, the French will have a chance to have four teams in the Champions League, with three of them qualifying automatically.

This is great news and we now expect to see some surprise names in the competition from France next term, but which Ligue 1 teams will they be?

The battle for the other three spots behind PSG is heating up as the season progresses into its very important stage and some shock names are inside the top four now.

Those who buy Ligue 1 tickets have been treated to an unpredictable top-four race in this campaign and we still do not know the other three clubs that would finish this season inside the top four.

In this article, we discuss some of the teams who have been around the top four and predict their chance of playing in the Champions League next term.

Brest

Brest has made the most remarkable leap among French clubs in recent weeks as they are second in the league standings after 11 matches.

Eleven points separate them from PSG who top the standings, but Eric Roy’s side is a team to reckon with in France this season.

They have lost just four league games this term, only PSG has lost fewer matches than that and they are expected to keep this momentum.

This is because 2024 has been a good year for them as they have lost no league game and their only competitive defeat so far comes from PSG in the French Cup.

Brest is not one of the top sides in French football and their fans are used to the team battling for relegation, so this is a remarkable season for them in many ways.

With more than ten points separating them from the top of the league standings, they cannot become champions, but we expect them to finish in the Europa League spot at least.

Monaco

Monaco started this season strongly and topped the Ligue 1 standings for weeks as it seemed they could beat PSG to become the champions of France.

They had done a good job on the transfer market by signing the likes of Folarin Balogun from Arsenal and Denis Zakaria from Juventus.

PSG always faces a team that wants to take its crown as the champions of France and we all thought it could be Monaco this season.

But as the campaign progressed, they have since lost the top spot to the Parisians and have lost the second spot to Brest in the last few weeks.

Monaco remains around the top three and is one of the best-placed teams to finish inside the top four and secure a Champions League spot.

Brest has been impressive and exciting to watch, but Monaco is a more accomplished and experienced team in the league. If one of both clubs could finish inside the top four, it will most likely be Monaco.

Nice

Nice is another team that has overachieved in Ligue 1 this season as Francesco Farioli proves to be one of the finest young coaches in Europe now.

He had worked with Roberto de Zerbi at two clubs and started his career as a goalkeeper trainer, but the 34-year-old is beginning to make good progress in his career with the job he is doing at Nice now.

The Ligue 1 side has impressed with their displays this season, especially at the back where they rarely concede goals, having conceded just 15 in 23 league games so far.

Nice fans are used to buying their team tickets to games knowing there won’t be many goals scored in the fixture.

They will usually win games by narrow scorelines and that has kept them in the top four, even though most people will not enjoy watching them play.

In the next few weeks, if Francesco Farioli can get the likes of Terem Moffi to start scoring more goals, Nice could get back in the top two.

However, even at their current pace, they still look set to comfortably finish this season inside the Champions League places.

Lille

With Lyon and Olympique Marseille struggling, we expected Lille to take advantage of that to get close to the top of the Ligue 1 table.

However, they have also had their problems, having sold most of their top players in the last two transfer windows.

After 23 games, Lille is three points off the last automatic Champions League spot, so we expect them to stay in the race for some time.

Because they have more experience than Nice and Brestois, it will not be smart to rule them out of a return to the Champions League next season.

Jonathan David is having one of his finest goalscoring seasons and the Canadian’s goals have been a reason why Lille has stayed competitive for this long.

If they keep winning games, with time, Brest and Nice could drop more points and hand them a way back inside the top four.

Lens

Lens is a team that demonstrates how unpredictable the Ligue 1 table can look from season to season as they struggle to match last season’s heroics.

They finished inside the top two after some fantastic football and earned an automatic qualification to the group stage of the Champions League.

However, they have remained outside the top four this term after a run in Europe and it looks difficult to see them break back into the top four.

Lens is traditionally one of the top clubs in France and has just been eliminated from the Europa League by Freiburg, so we expect them to focus on a late push into the top four now.

They will have fewer fixtures ahead and only five points separate them from the Ligue 1 top three after 23 games, so Lens could return to the UCL next season.

Rennes

Rennes is another club that is fighting to make the top four in Ligue 1 and they are just six points away from the last automatic spot in the league.

AC Milan eliminated them from Europe in the last round of the Europa League and we expect them to be back to continental football next season.

Rennes has groomed some of the finest players in Europe and continues to develop others, so we know they have a pedigree.

Fans knew it would be hard for them to beat AC Milan and their elimination from the Europa League gives them a chance to compete to earn European football again.

In the coming weeks, they will get chances to close the gap between them and the top, but they have to be in their best form to achieve success.

The likes of Olympique Lyon and Olympique Marseille are currently far off in the race to finish inside the Champions League places, but there is still time for any team to get back in those spots, and they might.