Through Aline Chatel
Published on
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In a few weeks, some regional level clubs will feel like they are in the Champions League. It will miss the level, the stars, the stadiums and the crowd, but there will be the schedule. Football will be on Wednesdays and weekends. In a season that extends until June, the Normandy Cup and its ten rounds is added to the championship matches, which themselves alternated with the Coupe de France at the start of the year.
A loss of attraction
Is it too much, this Normandy Cup? Some are not far from thinking it, arguing of an overloaded schedule and the risks of injury or suspensions that this generates. The higher the ambition in the league, the lower the expectations in the Normandy Cup. The regional meeting open to all clubs from the fourth departmental division to Regional 1 seems to have lost its aura. In any case, this is what Frank Dechaume feels, who remembers the games played when he was an educator at the Malherbe training center.
This competition was important a few years ago. It is less today. The Normandy Cup has lost some because the teams rotate. It no longer makes people dream, including among young people.
Laurent Dufour, his colleague from ASPTT Caen, shares the observation. “It’s up to the league to make this competition prestigious, by making it attractive,” he said. However, when there is a problem with the calendar, we blow up the Normandy Cup… ”The winner of the Lower Normandy Cup in 2012 refers to the abolition decreed in 2019-2020 after the appearance of Covid and to the cancellation decided the following season.
Two years without competition
It is perhaps because the reunified Normandy Cup has few editions on the clock that the enthusiasm around it is moderate. “We didn’t talk about it anymore because it hadn’t been played for two years, observes the president of the league, Pierre Leresteux. But after being restrained by the pandemic, clubs want to play football. There are as many participants as in previous years, if not more. However, few are those who make it a real goal, as it could have been before.
The final at the Ornano stadium brought an extra spice. When we went there with the club, it was something!
At the same time, the finalists and the best teams from the districts received a significant financial allocation of several thousand euros. “I had obtained a partnership with the casinos, recalls Pierre Leresteux. I have to meet some of them to see how to staff this cut. For the final in a big stadium, it seems more complicated. The agreement reached with President Fortin has had its day. “The Professional Football League is not in favor of curtain-raising matches. »
Everyone sees an interest
Despite the obstacles, no one imagines a season without a regional cup. “It allows all the clubs in Normandy to be brought together under the same competition”, recalls Frank Dechaume, who aspires to have it “brought up to date”. In the lower level clubs, everyone sees an interest in it. “This cup is an opportunity for some players to be able to show off,” said Morgan Ranguet in Hérouville (R2). “This makes it possible to chain official matches without having to find friendly matches,” adds Eddy Lemarchand in Bretteville-sur-Odon (R2).
The “Party” for District Clubs
Lower in the hierarchy, the passion for the game is also predominant. “These are bonus matches, the opportunity to play another competition than the championship, observes Nicolas Duchesne at FC Inter Odon (D1). You can rub shoulders with teams that play at a higher level. “Same feeling with Yliès Daoudi, who leads one of the little Thumbs, the Chemin Vert (D2) in Caen.
The Normandy Cup makes it possible to confront regional teams, but we have the objective of going up there. It’s like in the Coupe de France. When we come across the ASPTT Caen, it’s the jackpot for us! I think there will be a lot more people than usual. It’s an opportunity to bring people back and make the club known.
“It’s going to be a party,” concludes Yliès Daoudi. The spirit of the fit is still there, and that’s perhaps the main thing. There is no doubt that the more the towers pass, the more the appetite of the big clubs in the region will grow…
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