PSG, without its star striker Lionel Messi, faces the fans of the Entente Feignies-Aulnoye, Sunday, December 19, in Valenciennes (North) in the 32nd final of the French Football Cup.“It’s unexpected”, that “gonna be a great party”, rejoices on franceinfo Laurent Menisse, the president of the National 3 club.
franceinfo: How does it feel to face PSG this Sunday evening?
Laurent Meninez: We are a local, regional, very young club. We train a lot of young players and today is their celebration. We have already won the match by filling this fabulous stadium in Valenciennes. We’re going to have 25,000 spectators tonight, almost only locals, so it’s going to be a great atmosphere, it’s going to be a great party.
We have already won the match, in the sense that we brought all these people together, we gave them happiness, pride and that is very important for the club, for us.
Laurent Menisseto franceinfo
I hope our players will have a lot of fun. It is now that it will be played out. At the sporting level, it’s a different story.
Did you think you could get there?
It’s unexpected, it’s incredible. The boys did the job by qualifying and us by having this fabulous draw. This is the opportunity to put the club and the region in the media nationally. It’s a springboard for us too, to consider evolving and why not make an even bigger club with the neighboring city, if one day we manage to merge all that and do something a little more serious. The goal is to have a nice party, hoping that the weather will be also good. In this period of health crisis, for me, it’s also incredible if we manage to kick off this evening because we are still going to bring together a lot of people and it was still not won this story
The footballers of your club are amateurs, unlike those of PSG. What do they do in life ?
There are some who work in companies, there are three or four who work in the club, there are some who work as teachers.
These are normal people who work and who, for their passion for football, train three times, four times a week.
Laurent Menisseto franceinfo
They are quasi-professionals in training who must juggle their private, professional and sporting life and frankly it is not easy. But anyway, in this game, everything is out of proportion. A budget of a National 3 club is 600,000 to 800,000 euros when all is well, and opposite you have clubs at 600 million euros. The ratio is one per thousand.
In your opinion, what made your players succeed in qualifying for the 32nd finals of the Coupe de France football?
These are players who never give up. They have heart. We have a very good defense. We have two Senegalese boys who are amazing. We are going to join forces because we will especially have to resist the first 20, 30 minutes and then we will see. What is most important is that the boys have fun and acclimatize to a stadium of 25,000 people. When you play in front of 200 to 300 people every Sunday, you can talk to each other, understand each other… You have to avoid making mistakes and we’ll see, but it should be a good evening.