The FFF regulations stipulating that overseas teams must travel to France to play in the 32nd final of the Coupe de France, the Martinique club Saint-Joseph will play at Furiani against SC Bastiais. If the Josephine leaders had expressed their wish to play in Paris, the Federation did not follow them.
Surprise winner in the previous round of the Étoile sportif Ornaysienne de la Roche-sur-Yon (N3), the RC Saint-Joseph flew Monday evening from the “island of flowers” to the Léonard de Vinci Center, in the Essonne, in the Paris region. This is where the team prepared for this big meeting until its departure for Corsica this Thursday morning and where, in the evening, it carried out a final training session at the Paul-Antoniotti stadium in Borgo.
On the Bastiais side, we prepared for this cup match with the greatest seriousness.
« We will do everything to end the calendar year well », underlines defender Florian Bohnert. « A cup match is always special and complicated. Faced with this Saint-Joseph team, we must be serious and professional and use the same ingredients as in the championship. We haven’t really analyzed their matches, but I think they will expect us quite low. It’s up to us not to put ourselves in danger, and to be patient too, these are the keys to the match ».
For coach Benoit Tavenot, this match is important for several reasons. “Winning gives confidence, allows you to go an extra round and offers more matches to play. » The cup is emotions for everyone, it’s very important to go through ».
For this meeting the coach will be able to put the names of 20 players on the match sheet, but Akueson, Guevara and Etoga will be absent due to injuries. If goalkeeper Placide is preserved and rested, the coach will not really rotate his squad. “ There will be a small evolution compared to previous matches, but I will not rotate too much while giving some playing time. The objective is to win. In this match, we have no room for error especially since we are playing at home», Specifies the coach.
RC Saint-Joseph? “ We did not have many images to prepare for this meeting. This is a team that has just eliminated a N3 on its home field. It is a generous team, which has strength and which puts a lot of enthusiasm and energy. It’s up to us to put them out quickly. A victory, a qualification would also validate our first 6 months ».
After this meeting the group will take a few days of vacation to return to training on December 27 in preparation for the resumption of the Ligue 2 championship in Grenoble on January 3.
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