Calais resurrected!
Orphan of CRUFC, finalist of the 2000 Coupe de France and liquidated in 2017, the most populous city of Pas-de-Calais has long wandered in the desert. War of egos, financial setbacks, past as moving as it is cumbersome… The long, quiet river is full of meanders, and the end of the tunnel is not for tomorrow. But this Saturday evening, in the 32nd final of the Old Lady against Strasbourg (0-3), the Racing Club de Calais (resulting from the merger of two clubs from the Cité des Six Bourgeois) brought back hope. Football, on this piece of land on the Opal Coast, is still in the dictionary.
Liam Rosenior probably does not have, in his library, volumes telling the history of Calais. Nor the memory that between 1347 and 1558 – until the liberation of the port city by Henry II – his British ancestors had made this corner of France a territory acquired from the Perfidious Albion. But the Strasbourg technician, a Londoner at heart, knows that “
the magic of the cup
» – an expression that he threw out on Saturday evening, in the mazes of the Stade de l'Epopée – had crossed the 32 kilometers separating the cliffs of Dover from the beach of Calais. “
I think you also have this formula here,
the young forty-year-old said.
Calais showed a great image of football in terms of character, attitude and gave us a hard time. At the end of the first period, we were starting to get tense and fortunately Karl-Johan
(Johnsson)
made this very nice save
. »
It was at this moment, when the doubt and the thrill of a cup evening began to hover in the Calais sky in the middle of gusts of wind that would disorient a seagull, that the Alsatian goalkeeper relaxed (0-0, 39
e
). «
If we give this penalty, it's not the same outcome
replayed Olivier Laridon, the coach of Racing Club de Calais (N3).
But we'll never know
. » Returning from the locker room, Andrey Santos on a corner (0-1, 57
e
) then Sékou Mara twice (0-2, 73
e
; 0-3, 89
e
) finally extracted theirs from a trapping web despite the four divisions difference. After greeting his family in the VIP lounges in the Calais area, Olivier Laridon sent one last sentiment: “
We made people happy, I think.
»…
In Calais, by Florent Caffery for SOFOOT.com
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