We are not going to come back to the draw, on the sadness of both teams not to face a Ligue 1 team in the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France. No, now we have to talk sports and tell ourselves that this Wednesday evening around 8:30 p.m., a National 2 team will find themselves in the semi-finals of the Coupe de France. Bergerac receives Versailles in the Périgueux rugby stadium (6.30 p.m.). This duel opposes two leading teams of their N2 group. On paper, advantage to the receiving team but FC Versailles does not intend to let their chance pass.
“We need to go upstairs”
Last Saturday, we went to the Montbauron Stadium in Versailles. There, in front of 500 spectators, the resident club was caught in the league by the Guingamp reserve (1-1). When we left the locker room, when we wanted to talk about the Coupe de France, the faces were closed and it was not easy to relax the atmosphere. Because let’s be clear, with its budget of 1.8 million euros, FC Versailles is very ambitious: “it sure feels good to take a little light with this Coupe de France, especially when you’re an amateur. Now we mustn’t forget, at the end of the season, we have to go up to the upper floor in National 1” indicates the left side Makan Traoré. Leader of his pool A with a 6-point lead in Saint-Pryvé Saint-Hilaire, FC Versailles is still on track to achieve its objective.
“It’s a pride”
With 1,200 members, the FC Versailles club is a solid club in Ile de France. His journey has highlighted his project (and the lighting problems in his stadium) but also a man: Youssef Chibhi. The coach has been at the club for 18 years where he has held many positions. In 2014, he took charge of the first team. Since then, Youssef Chibhi has climbed the ladder with his group and given it a (very playful) identity. At 40, here he is at the head of a team that will play a quarter-final of the Coupe de France: “Personally, it’s obviously a source of pride. We’ve come a long way and by dint of working with educators and volunteers, we’ve managed to put this club back at the top of the bill in the region. I’m proud and happy with what we are experiencing.”
A team built for the feat
If FC Versailles 78 has had an excellent run in the league and in the Coupe de France this season, it is because the club is sportingly armed. The arrival of an investor (Fiducim – City-Gc, a real estate development company) and the appointment of Jean-Luc Arribart as general manager have enabled the club to structure itself and recruit even better. The profile of the players is similar, young people often from the Ile-de-France region who have gone through training centers and who have then traveled more or less well in their careers.
Waly Diouf is 24 years old, he is a native of Neuilly-sur-Seine. This slender central defender was trained in Lyon, before playing in Spain, Tunisia but also in Czech D2 before arriving at FC Versailles. Tonight, he knows it’s his chance like that of his teammates to shine.
We will leave everything on the field and give more than 200%. We want to give ourselves the chance to go to the semi-finals. Honestly, it’s top notch! Everything we live is top notch. So now we have to go even further because we still have some under our feet.
In this Versailles project, it now remains to embark a little more the public and the fans who still have a little trouble getting enthusiastic about this course in the Coupe de France. To encourage the Whites and Blues, there will be 50 fans in Périgueux. The city of Versailles, for its part, has installed a giant screen on the Notre-Dame de Versailles market square in order to unite around FCV78, which is on the doorstep of the semi-finals of the Coupe de France.