At kick-off, Anglet appeared with as many as seven absentees, including a much weakened defence: just two back pairs and a young U20 to try and protect Mat Robson. Ditto for a scaled-down offense against a full Jyrki Aho team. Despite the absences, it was Pierrick Rézard’s men who won this quarter-final from the right side. Not much, because the match official is squeamish about English fouls, and penalizes Hormadi twice in quick succession. With a double numerical advantage, Sacha Treille found a cross for Adel Koudri at the far post, who opened the scoring with an open cage (1-0, 11th).
It was then four against four that Grenoble counter-attacked. The Quebecer Nicolas Deschamps enters the offensive zone at full speed before serving in front of the cage by Sacha Treille who arrives launched and only has to push the puck into the back of Mat Robson’s net (2-0, 16th). But the Hormadi does not let go, and in turn obtains a double superiority in numbers before the end of the first act. On five against three, Austin Glover moves Matyas Zelingr to the right, the Czech triggers a powerful one timer and deceives Jakub Stepanek (2-1, 19th). Not blameless on this Anglo-Saxon goal, the Grenoble goalkeeper gives the Basques hope at the first break.
Surgical Grenoble
But Anglet seems to have remained in the locker room at the start of the second half. Since it only takes forty seconds for Nicolas Deschamps to infiltrate a too lax Basque defense and come and deceive the Anglo goalkeeper with a wrist shot (3-1, 21st). Too bad, because the visitors give the Wolf Burners a hard time. But the English powerplay is not productive enough on Tuesday evening to reward the work done by Mat Robson in his cage. And when they don’t materialize, the Angloys are punished in the face of the realism of Grenoble. Three minutes from the end of the third, the scoreboard overturned in front of the Isère bench, and it was Nicolas Deschamps who put Hormadi on the cross again with a nice hand game against Robson (4-1, 37th).
The last twenty minutes then seem anecdotal for an Anglet team that is forced to draw on its own reserves. With Victor Ranger looking very fit right now, Anglet narrowed the mark. Only on the right of the circle, the Basque number 18 tricks Stepanek to score his second point of the evening (4-2, 42nd) and confirms his good season.
While Hormadi uses forceps, coach Barcelo does his own and whistles a risky foul which seems to be compensation for the goal denied to Grenoble a few minutes earlier. Behind is a blow, the young and talented Dylan Fabre puts his name on the break (5-2, 45th). Twenty minutes of penalty on one side, twenty-two minutes on the other, the referees take control in this final match broken by whistles.
