Saturday’s French Cup final will be a veritable David versus Goliath affair as third-tier minnows Quevilly take on Ligue 1 giants Olympique Lyonnais at the Stade de France.
France’s national knockout competition is no stranger to giant-killing, with Calais famously going all the way to the final in 2000 before losing to Nantes.
Quevilly — who hail from a suburb of the Normandy city of Rouen — have a proud history in the competition too, having lost to Olympique de Marseille in the 1927 final and also reached the last four in 2010, where they lost to eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain.
Photo: AFP
This year’s run has been nothing short of remarkable, with Quevilly beating Marseille 3-2 after extra time in the quarter-finals and then eliminating another top-flight side in the last four in the shape of Stade Rennais.
Now Lyon — a club with an annual budget of 130 million euros (US$171.8 million) — stand in the way of Quevilly — budget 1.9 million euros — and a remarkable final triumph.
After being promoted from the fourth tier of the French game last season, Quevilly currently sit 13th in the Championnat National, the semi-professional third division.
With five games of the campaign remaining, they are not yet certain of avoiding relegation.
There might be more than a whiff of cup romance about Quevilly’s achievements in going as far as they have, but this is not some rogue selection of bakers, postmen and milkmen.
Of Quevilly’s 26-man squad, 17 are paid to play the game, including 14 who are on full-time federal contracts.
Goalkeeper Yassine El Kharrou-bi is on loan from second-division club — and 2009 Cup winners — Guingamp, while captain Gregory Beaugrard and Kevin Giboyau have contracts as youth coaches.
Coach Regis Brouard, a former Montpellier player who has become one of France’s most coveted young managers, oversees daily training sessions and makes sure the day-to-day running of the club is just like that of a top-tier outfit.
“In terms of the work we do, we are no different to any professional club. We work hard! But we don’t have the budget nor the infrastructure of a professional club, we just have to take things day by day,” Brouard says.
Journeys to away games are undertaken by bus and the players must pay for physiotherapy themselves.
While the majority of Quevilly’s players are technically professional, the best-paid of those takes home 3,200 euros a month.
Meanwhile, Lyon’s biggest earner, Yoann Gourcuff, pockets a cool 450,000 euros a month.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB