2010-11 Coupe de la Ligue-Coupe de France thread [R]

i've never been a big fan of the coupe moustache and i can't claim any of the faults i found with it are not still valid. but i have to admit that the competition has given two great moments to lyon fans this year, matches that make the whole factory (well, except the green contingent) giddy as schoolboys the next morning.

count the zagreb match and you have three do-or-die cup matchs de coupe that have given us more excitement and joy than three years under puel.

next wednesday is bordeaux in the coupe de france, and here's another reason why a guy like me has to love cup ties: my seat was only 6€!

 

i'll try to find time tomorrow to say more, but yoyo was pretty good, cris fairly reassuring all in all (even if...), rvr all over the field...

i had a ticket, but since the match started before i normally get off work, and it was EIGHT DEGREES BELOW ZERO, i let 6 euros go to waste and just watched the second half at home.

 

only time for a few random comments and this would have been my most important too. you have to admit that garde had some quality subs at his disposal. poor gillot... girondin fans were criticizing him for not subbing earlier but look at the three saps he had to put on (actually maurice-belay is not bad, but not exactly the ticket for fighting back from a goal down).

next, if you needed any more proof of the poverty of analysis and lack of objectivity of mainstream french sports media, just look at the amount of blame gourcuff is getting for bordeaux's goal... for losing a ball inside bordeaux's box.

i was pleased with cris' match, a deceptively difficult one for a central defender, especially one that lacks pace. a red card for stopping gouffran's run the way he did on 85' would have been hard to contest, but at 40m from goal it's hard to categorically state he "destroyed a clear chance to score"... and in any case, even down a man OL was almost certain to win, whereas if gouffran does run away and score we probably lose; a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. he also made one magnificent charge forward that reminded us of the good old days when he really ran the team instead of just wearing the armband.

rvr's match was splendid, but also very strange. besides the normal fullback's work up and down the line, he was moving all across the face of the bordeaux defense, and once i even thought he had permutated with dabo: he was all the way over on the opposite touchline trying to get the ball from mariano!

the explanation for me was that trémoulinas was so very frightfully pale that anto could desert his post almost at will... benoit was looking better at the beginning of this season but his case is indeed grave. still not as bad as young mariano's on the other side. if i was in girondin's management i would be considering civil and perhaps criminal proceedings against him and his agent for faux et usage de faux: impersonating a footballer. again, have a thought for poor francis gillot: what chance do you have with a 5 man backline when both fullbacks are so woefully useless? orphans in the storm.

because france 234's favorite pinhead xavier gravelaine said so 10 times (more viscerally antilyonnais than he you will not find: not even duga) said it was, everyone this morning (including olweb!) is calling briand's service to bafé a duffed shot. but the more i looked at it the more i was sure it was beautiful and intentional; certainly if licha, ederson or bastos had made it no one would have doubted it from the beginning!

 

i actually didn't see it as i tuned in later, and the replays of the goal backtracked far enough to show two or three other lyonnais that did their job poorly (even lloris bears a part of the blame, gouffran had a very small angle and hugo makes plenty of saves like that) but not all the way back to gourcuff. but it was after all about eight below zero, and there were patches around that penalty area (which is in the shadow of the tribune sud) that were icy.

not to support yoyo at all costs, and like i said i didn't see it, but the way commentators make blanket statements using sometimes only a few percent of the information available and factors under consideration gets up my nozzies real, real bad.

 

what??? that's the danger of highlight clips. carrasso was a monster. without him bordeaux loses 8-0.

the gourcuff muff is clearly not down to either a slip or the hard ground, but he's not showboating either. seeing him try stuff like that inside 18 is encouraging.

from those angles i tend to agree with you about briand's shot, especially knowing how he plays. there were some closeups (on which the speed may have been fudged with: these days slow-motion replay has become so sophisticated, and the director at france télé, fred godard, loves his special effects) that may have fooled me. the ball comes off the outside of his shoe so cleanly, and with exactly the ankle movement one would use to make a pass... but briand isn't bastos! silly me!

 

a big tip of the hat to our gones who didn't let an unfair penalty at the beginning break their concentration. and another to KK who after this match may be considered our absolute best player this season.

when RG brought on a 5th and then a 6th defender (7 if you count bastos who is no stranger to LB and played that way last night) i thought, "clearly, the man has gone insane". especially considering way the attaque-defense at gerland finished, and the way we were already starting to get eaten up in the midfield, but in hindsight it was genius. having a hugo in grand form helped, but sucking the game into a pocket handkerchief is what opened up the way for long balls to gomis and blistering runs by bastos that led to one goal and nearly two.

and now we only have a club in National, gazélec ajaccio, between us and a second april rendez-vous in the stade de france!

 

it seems no worse than françois-coty, which is by no means up to snuff for L2 homologation but despite repeated mises en demeure, broken promises, remises en demeure, and rebroken promises, hosts L1 matches without hindrance.

generally, for reasons i find inexplicable the league has always been very lenient with corsican clubs in terms of stadiums and off-field discipline. for example, if the same yardstick was applied to them as to sainté, who have been penalized 56,000€ and a match behind closed doors for a few dozen flares (occurring before the events of the recent derby which will probably double the tariff) bastia would have no chance to play in L1 next year, either through docked points for their monkeyshines this season or simply on general principles.

the stadium is one thing. but i am given to understand that if ACA is a gentlemanly affair, the gazélec fans make the worst hooligans in french football (bastia) look like choirboys.