Bob Bradley & Le Havre miss out on promotion to Ligue 1 by only 1 goal

France and Ligue 2 bore witness to a wild and nearly miraculous finish in the race for promotion, with former USMNT manager Bob Bradley and Le Havre AC coming just one measly goal away from stealing third place and a promotion to Ligue 1 from FC Metz.

Coming into the final matchday of the season in France’s second division, Le Havre were in fourth place, outside of the three automatic promotion places from Ligue 2 to the promised land of Ligue 1. There was a chance for them to earn promotion to the top division for the first time since 2009, but it would require a lot of things to go right for Bradley and his squad. They were three points behind Metz coming into the day, meaning that they had to beat Bourg-en-Bresse 01 and Metz had to lose to Lens just to catch up -- and neither result could be particularly assured, even with Le Havre playing at home and Metz on the road.

More than that, though, Le Havre trailed by six points of goal differential for the tiebreaker and were seven goals back in the next tiebreaker, total goals scored, so they needed a seven-goal swing between the two matches to surpass Metz. That meant that Le Havre and Lens had to win their two matches by a combined total of at least seven goals for Le Havre to gain promotion -- a truly daunting task indeed.

And it almost happened.

Lens scored in the eighth minute of their match against Metz and never relinquished their lead, though they also never scored again. Still, just having Lens win their match at all was huge for Le Havre, and the first step of what they needed to advance. Even with the two matches playing at the same time, Le Havre would have had someone monitoring that game -- so they knew exactly what they needed to do from first minute to last.

For Le Havre’s part, they scored three first-half goals to take a commanding lead over Bourg-en-Bresse, who went down to 10 men when Aliou Dembele picked up two yellow cards in a minute to get sent off 35 minutes into the game. Bob Bradley’s squad needed three goals in the second half to advance, and for Lens to hold onto their slim lead. Another Lens goal or two would have helped, but all Bradley could rely on was his own team scoring.

Time ticked away.

In the 67th minute, Issam Chebake scored to make it 4-0. Two more goals. Time ticked away.

In the 83rd minute, Ghislain Gimbert scored to make it 5-0. Just one more goal, and promotion belonged to Le Havre.

Time ticked away.

And it ticked away.

And it ran out.

That last goal never came, and Le Havre will spend another year in Ligue 2 while FC Metz play with the big boys in Ligue 1 again after being relegated from it just a year ago. What this means for Bradley is uncertain -- he was hired back in November with the goal of attaining promotion, but a rough spell in April forced them into Friday’s desperation hour. The former United States national team boss has a history of coming up just short, and that might cost him a chance at getting a second try with Le Havre.

In the meantime, though, we can enjoy having witnessed such a crazy end to the Ligue 2 season. It’s not often that things go down to the wire like that, and it made for a wild and entertaining day in the sport, the kind of day we should always treasure when we get them.