Zapping Goal! Football club ASSE – OL: The post-match debrief
“We feared the worst for ASSE on Sunday in this 16th Coupe de France final. No, not because of the team’s performance, although, as Pascal Dupraz admits, Jura Sud gave him problems in the second half. If there is no question of getting carried away because for the second time in two rounds, the Greens have released a National 2 club in difficulty in its championship, we will not refuse to draw conclusions from this either. Victoire. Because in the event of elimination everyone would have fallen hard on the failing professionals. There, they did not fail and did the job with seriousness, respecting the opponent, the competition, just football. Better, if facing La Duchère, they had contented themselves with the minimum, this time, the realism was there. Scoring four goals, even with an eleven four divisions down, is good for morale. The new Greens coach even struggled to conceal a small smile as he regretted that the difference had not been clearer in the first half. At least there has been confirmation that there is still work to be done in terms of efficiency, and that on both sides of the pitch. In front of observers evoking the going of Arnaud Nordin scorer vis-à-vis Clermont, Claude Puel had tempered the enthusiasms by explaining awaiting confirmation. Maybe that’s what Dupraz also said to himself after the game at La Duchère where Nordin had won and to himself he was thinking on Sunday, noting that the score could have been wider. But we won’t be choosy any longer. Let’s just say that the hardest part for a player is to follow through.
ASSE could have followed the same dead end as OL
But why then did the Stéphanois tremble since their favorites finally mastered their subject, accelerating to get away when danger threatened. Because once again, a few ultras have played with fire, both literally and figuratively, to inspire this question to our colleague from Eurosport “aren’t they trying to harm the club? The doubt will benefit the premeditation, but the stopping of the match for twenty minutes after the use of smoke which had plunged the pitch in the fog was moderately appreciated by the federation. And let’s not talk about the firecracker which deafened the opposing goalkeeper, fortunately not inclined to add more. We were certainly far from the incidents of OL’s game at Paris FC, but a second interruption of the game could have been more decisive than four own goals. The referee was smart enough not to frown when more smoke swirled downwind. The club will get away with another fine and the fans with further bans unfairly shared. The essential is saved with a place in the sixteen still in the race on the road to the Stade de France, and a little bit of road to recovering confidence, as Dupraz repeats.
The postponement of the match in Angers is not so bad
Would he have liked to continue with the trip to Angers? This is what he implied during his press briefing last Friday, but without completely convincing us as the period is complicated for the workforce and not only because of the Covid. The Saint-Etienne group suffers from the absences of major players who left for CAN and the recruitment of those that Dupraz wanted to see arrive very quickly, will be delayed. Puel’s successor explains these difficulties by the reluctance of clubs to separate from players in the face of the risk of forfeits due to the virus, but without wanting to remove his illusions, he is wrong. In Saint-Étienne, we like to wait until the last hours of the transfer window. At least he is warned. He’s going to have to fight. “
Didier BIGARD
to summarize
“The Saint-Etienne group suffers from the absences of major players who left for CAN and the recruitment of those that Dupraz wanted to see arrive very quickly, will be delayed. The successor of Puel explains these difficulties by the reluctance of the clubs to separate from players faced with the risk of forfeits due to the virus, but without wanting to take away his illusions, he is mistaken. In Saint-Étienne, we like to wait for the last hours of the transfer window. At least he is warned. He will have to fight “, estimates Didier Bigard.
