Transfer talk: Anthony Lopes set to guard the net for SCO Angers
Just days after sealing survival, Angers have moved on to one of their first big jobs of the summer. The SCO have found their new keeper. Free agent Anthony Lopes, after leaving Nantes, is set to carry on his Ligue 1 career in Angers colours.
The 35-year-old Portuguese has already had a look around his new surroundings. He has been through the club facilities, passed a medical and tied up the final details. Barring an unexpected twist, he should sign a two-year deal in the next few days, with the option of an extra season. For Angers, it is a rare bargain in the market. For Lopes, it is a quick reset after a season that ended with Nantes dropping down a division.
A keeper who knows the job
French football holds few mysteries for Anthony Lopes now. After his long spell at Lyon and then his time at Nantes, the goalkeeper has racked up more than four hundred top-flight appearances. His arrival gives the SCO one thing above all else: experience. European nights with Lyon, high-pressure survival battles, seasons where every point matters. While plenty of clubs bet on youth, Angers have gone for a player who knows exactly what this league demands.
With the squad still likely to change plenty over the summer, that sort of profile matters. The SCO were after a keeper who could offer more than saves. A dressing-room leader. Someone used to carrying responsibility.
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Angers draw a line under one era
Lopes arrives against a shifting backdrop. Behind the scenes, the club are already planning the next step after Alexandre Dujeux’s spell with the SCO came to an end. After three and a half years in charge, the coach and the club’s hierarchy agreed to part ways. No fallout, no public bust-up, just the end of a cycle that began in a very different chapter of the club’s recent history.
That leaves Angers with two big jobs: find Dujeux’s replacement and strengthen a squad that will once again be fighting to stay in Ligue 1. In the middle of all that change, Anthony Lopes will be one of the new faces of the project. A goalkeeper who might have thought he’d seen it all in French football, only to be handed another chapter, this time in SCO’s black and white.
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