Always contested, sometimes flammable: the OL-PSG poster unfolds Saturday (16:00) in the final of the Women's France Cup, a first in three years, but the show is contained in the small stadium of Orleans, which makes cringe.
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For women's football, we must be more ambitious": the boss of the Lyon team, Sonia Bompastor, did not mince her words this week when evoking the Stade de la Source and its 6,000 seats, scene of the next fight between the Fenottes and their Parisian rivals.
The coach spoke about "what is happening in England", with a Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United sold out this weekend at Wembley (90,000 seats) and deplored the choice of the French Federation.
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We would have liked the FFF to choose a stadium of 15 to 20,000 people at least, especially when we see the poster of this final between the two best French teams, "she added.
Few spectators and no Parisian ultras
Nor should we count on the fervour of the Parisian ultras, usual supporters of the women's section, who have given up the trip to the Loiret as part of a broader boycott born of a conflict with the club's management.
Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra and Les Bleues coach Hervé Renard, announced in the stands, should attend this unprecedented poster in the final since 2020, the year OL last crowned in the competition. The 2021 edition was cancelled in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and Lyon stumbled the following year in the knockout stages, against Paris.
OL are triply motivated for Saturday's deadline. It is about recovering a trophy too long abandoned, sending a signal to PSG before their "final" in the league on May 21, and offering the Cup to former president Jean-Michel Aulas as a parting gift.
Bompastor wants the title to celebrate Aulas
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If right now he needs comfort and happiness, it is his women's team that can bring him. We will give the maximum to give him this pleasure, "said Sonia Bompastor, "saddened" by the sidelining of the historic leader, one of the main promoters of women's practice in France.
For Lyon, winning the Cup and the league would also look like a consolation prize this season after the early exit in the Champions League, against Chelsea in the quarter-finals.
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For us and the team's record, finishing on a double would be a minimum in terms of ambition and compared to what we have shown in terms of objectives, "did not hide Bompastor.
Their rivals PSG intend to thwart this plan, Saturday and then in the league, despite a three-point gap in the standings.
To achieve this, the capital club can count on Grace Geyoro, its international midfielder who started in Orleans, but still not on its star strikers Kadidiatou Diani and Marie-Antoinette Katoto, not yet fit to play again.
