“When you’re dwarfs like Nantes, you have to be ambitious. You have to dream big. You have to try the impossible”, launched Antoine Kombouaré at the end of the first leg. The adversary promises to be particularly tough: despite their deep extra-sporting crisis, the Bianconeri dominated the debates in the first leg, touched the amounts three times and consider themselves injured from a penalty. They will be “lifted like everything”warned the Nantes coach.
In Italy, La Spezia paid the price, beaten in the league (2-0), when Nantes lost to Lens (3-1). But the Canaries have a few reasons to dream.
A boiling hot stadium
Sales reserved for subscribers were enough to fill the stadium and Beaujoire is preparing for one of these electric encounters of which it has the secret. The oldest will remember the 3-2 victory won against Juventus in the semi-final second leg of the Champions League in 1996, unfortunately insufficient to recover from the 2-0 defeat suffered in the first leg.
More recently, the Kombouaré era was marked by a series of magical evenings where the public pushed their own, even largely led, until the last minute, to make the spans of the stadium tremble. But after the pyrotechnic festivals of the Tribune Loire during the group stage in the fall, or the invasion of the field in the Coupe de France last year, the club split a press release to call its supporters to restraint.
History of not having to play a possible round of 16 behind closed doors, like the quarter of the Coupe de France next week against Lens.
A world-class goalkeeper
In Turin, Alban Lafont was helped by his uprights but above all was imperial on several occasions against Angel Di Maria, Leandro Paredes… and even a ball from Andrei Girotto which was heading towards his own goal. He is now on 28 saves this season in the Europa League, more than any other goalkeeper in the competition. And with a confidence that could be used, especially as the match could go to penalties. “The posts? It’s not maraboutage, it’s success”, he assured.
A year almost to the day after disgusting PSG with the Messi-Neymar-Mbappé triplet (3-1 victory), the Nantes captain will still be a major asset behind a defense that has proven itself since the post-World Cup recovery but which accumulates physical glitches.
Alban Lafont will have to pull out all the stops to qualify Nantes.
AFP photo
The icing on the cake, the coach of the Blues Didier Deschamps will be in the stands, invited with a dozen other players from the 1996 semi-final. With the international retirement of Hugo Lloris and Steve Mandanda, the injury of Mike Maignan and the setbacks in the club of Alphonse Areola, Lafont has every interest in shining again.
A revived metronome
It’s been going on for several years: when Ludovic Blas is in good shape, it always ends up going to Nantes. And after taking a long time to digest his aborted departure last summer, the attacking midfielder has recovered well, despite groin problems that continue to bother him. He scored four of the 12 goals scored by the Canaries since the end of December, including that of the equalizer last Friday in Turin, at the conclusion of a perfect counter-attack.
And the people of Nantes had not made the full trip: Moses Simon was convalescent, Andy Delort injured, Ignatius Ganago left for his daughter’s funeral. Difficult to say in what state the Cameroonian international returned but Nantes could have additional offensive arguments to attempt the feat.
Ludovic Blas scored Nantes’ only goal in the first leg. Photo: AFP
