Bocanegra a part of Saint-Etienne's surprising turnaround in Ligue 1

It's not easy to surprise Carlos Bocanegra these days but even the U.S. national team captain, who has spent his last six years playing in Europe, has to pinch himself when he looks at the top of France's Ligue 1. After Saturday's 1-1 draw against reigning champions Marseille, his new club Saint-Etienne was top of the pile, with five wins from its first eight games.

"If you look around the league, on paper you would not have our team sitting in first place at this point, but we don't care about all that stuff," said Bocanegra in an exclusive interview with SI.com. Preseason, the club's target was to stay in the division: after all, Saint-Etienne finished just one place above the relegation zone in each of the last two campaigns.

Last week, Saint-Etienne won 1-0 at local rivals Lyon, a true smash-and-grab after the hosts hit the woodwork three times, had two shots cleared off the goal-line and had a strong penalty claim ignored. A late free-kick from top scorer Dimitri Payet settled the match, keeping Les Verts top of Ligue 1, a position it last occupied in February 1982.

Since then, the club has veered from financial mismanagement (1982) to fake-passport scandals (2001), not to mention those recent narrow escapes from the drop. So what has changed to put one of France's most popular clubs, a team that won seven titles and back-to-back doubles between 1967 and 1976, back on top? Bocanegra kindly talks us through some of the reasons:

*Bocanegra a part of Saint-Etienne's surprising turnaround in Ligue 1