the essential
The Toulouse Football Club did not come close to being knocked out as soon as it entered the fray this Saturday on the Feurs lawn against the National 3 team of Hauts Lyonnais. At the end of a penalty shootout (0-0, 2-4 after tab), the Violets returned to the round of 16.
“It’s the worst pitch I’ve ever played on in my life.” Aron Dönnum is categorical, and his sentence illustrates quite well the meeting which took place, with many false bounces, on the lawn of the Maurice-Rousson stadium in Feurs, in the Loire. On a loam filled with holes galore, the 2,800 spectators present in the enclosure to support the Hauts Lyonnais, a National 3 club, witnessed a festival of missed checks and balls that did not arrive, slowed down by the mud or sent ten meters from their recipients.
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Hauts Lyonnais – TFC in the Coupe de France: concussion protocol activated for Joshua King, seriously injured in the head this Saturday
“It was impossible to play football” summarizes Carles Martinez Novell, relieved to have qualified at the end of a match whose technical poverty contrasted with the wealth of twists and turns, with a red card on each side, nine minutes of added time after a head-to-head clash between Hilal Bouguerra and Joshua King, and a victory snatched on penalties while Frank Magri opened the session by missing his.
Concussion for Joshua King
Until the end, this match resembled the typical trap that big teams fall into in the Coupe de France. With a leveling down of the technical level, Toulouse, with whom Rafik Messali (21 years old) celebrated his first professional start and delivered a convincing performance, always remained under the threat of Hauts Lyonnais without ever really being above. The impression of a trap was greatly reinforced when Niklas Schmidt, who had shown good things up until then in the direction of the game, cut Tom Meyer along the touchline and was logically excluded.
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VIDEO. Hauts Lyonnais – TFC in the Coupe de France: “It was too much commitment”… Niklas Schmidt’s violent tackle on his opponent’s knee
At half-time, Carles Martinez Novell brought on Joshua King, who came out barely a quarter of an hour later suffering from a concussion. The Norwegian will therefore have to observe a period of rest, and could miss the resumption of the TFC scheduled for Saturday December 28. The match was rebalanced following the exclusion, more severe than that of Schmidt, of Rudy Loirette in the 67th minute, but it seemed written, somewhere, that this match would go to penalties.
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REPLAY. Hauts Lyonnais – TFC in the Coupe de France: Toulouse avoids the trap and wins at the end of the penalty shootout! Relive the meeting
When Carles Martinez Novell saw his team miss the first, he told himself that it was too much, after everything that had happened before, and that TFC should not pass. But starter Alex Dominguez and subsequent shooters rewrote history. It will continue in the Coupe de France for Toulouse, which arrives in the round of 16 through the very back door.
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