Les Rennais move forward in Coupe de France!

By: Christophe | March 19th, 2009

Favoured heavily, SRFC advance to the semi-finals of the Coupe de France with a 2 – 0 victory over Rodez. The match was not taken lightly as cases such as these are prone to upsets, especially since Paris Saint-Germain fell for much of the same reason to Rodez. Guy Lacombe spared nothing in this première lineup with Jérôme Leroy, Olivier Thomert and Moussa Sow teamed with lone striker Jimmy Briand and it showed as les Rouge et Noir started the match with the vision of attacking the upstarts with quick with deadly precision.

Opportunities flowed like a spring waters from the winter thaw for SRFC early but with each glance of opportunity, Rodez escaped leaving the Ligue 1 side’s needs unquenched. Following Olivier Thomert’s attempt missing at the tenth minute, Jimmy Briand three minutes later adds his name to the “close miss” pile and an uncomfortable trend is developing. Well before the mid-point of the opening half Rodez tooled with their tactics and stifled the Breton’s sides advances. However at the thirty-first minute Jérôme Leroy sends in a corner that Stéphane Mbia challenges the defenders as he rises high to head into the netting giving SRFC the 1-0 lead. Down by a goal Rodez begins to go forward and as they do so, are exposed to the attack. Leroy flirts with the goal but Rodez dodges being down by two with superb goalkeeping work. Unable to break the lock of Rodez, Rennais’ frustration is eliminated at the hour as Moussa Sow creates space to the left before firing the ball into Jimmy Briand who then heads in his fourth goal of the Coupe de France. Following the goal, the match effectively ended as Rodez are locked without a scoring threat given the work of SRFC’s committed defending.

The victory moves SRFC into semi-finale along with Grenoble who defeated Monaco 2-0, Toulouse and Guingamp.