We expected a lot from this match between Racing 92 and Lou, two teams often oriented towards the offensive. However, it was of a poor technical level and, chopped up by the video, devoid of rhythm…
We love Paris-La Défense-Arena, its futuristic sarcophagus, its twenty degrees all year round and, most of the time, the pleasant matches that its ultra-fast pitch offers spectators. However, we hadn't really planned to spend more than two hours in the Nanterre concert hall on Sunday afternoon… The fact is that this match between Racing 92 and Lou was unthinkably long, holy mother. In Hauts-de-Seine, the match referee, Mr. Praderie, was often overzealous and, once, twice, ten times, stopped the game to dissect the replays offered by the broadcaster on the giant screen of the pregnant: here to check an unbalanced forward from Henry Arundell, there to ensure that Romain Taofifenua did not deserve a red card, for having thrown his very broad shoulder into the squash of an unfortunate Lyonnais. So, we are certainly not saying that the game director was bad on Sunday afternoon. But this contemporary mania that referees have of systematically calling on video to the rescue to relieve themselves of a responsibility that they should by nature shoulder is at best time-consuming, at worst unpleasant. And on Sunday afternoon, this meeting which generally lacked epic breath, dynamism and technicality inevitably sank into indigestibility when the match referee and his video assessor decided to chop it up further, by accumulating slow motion. From then on? We expected better from this Racing – Lyon. We had even imagined that these two teams, often oriented towards the offensive and familiar with synthetic surfaces, would rock the leather for the last match of the year. We were very wrong… M . D.
