Although the Coupe de France doesn’t hold the same affection in the hearts of the French people as the FA Cup does in the UK it is still regarded as a legitimate competition and one that’s worthy of striving for each season.
The competition is open to all French football clubs and has seen some fantastic feel good stories over the years as tiny little clubs progress much further than expected and earn plum ties against some of the big boys.
Paris Saint Germaine have done particularly well in this competition of late and they will be looking to make it three wins in a row as they line up against Angers on Saturday evening.
Angers have battled to get this far but never really impressed as they faced up against US Granville, Caen, CA Bastia, Bordeaux and then Guingamp in their route to the final.
PSG played against SC Bastia, Rennes, Niort, US Avranches and Monaco in their defence of the competition and have been the much more impressive team. Their dismantling of Monaco 5-0 in the semi-finals was probably the highlight though it could be said that Monaco had their eyes on other prizes.
Statistically, this competition really should be won by PSG. They’re ahead in pretty much every metric I measure and unfortunately Angers really lag behind. The only place where Angers come out ahead is the number of shots they’ve taken when playing at home compared to the number of shots PSG have taken when playing away. As this is being played at a “neutral” venue (that’s really PSG’s second home) that really isn’t much of a consideration even if they are ostensibly the home side in this encounter
PSG won both of the clubs league encounters 2-0 this season and there is no reason we won’t see a similar scoreline on Saturday. It’s been a disappointing season overall for PSG and their fans. They were beaten to the title by Monaco and went out of the Champions League against Barcelona in a groundbreaking second leg defeat. Coach Unai Emery was brought in to take the club forwards and if he doesn’t win this competition then even more questions are likely to be asked after they’ve done worse in Ligue 1 and still not achieved anything of note in Europe.
The coach of Angers SCO had no such concerns. Stéphane Moulin was asked to keep Angers in Ligue 1 again and he achieved just that. Win this competition and he’ll go down in history as the coach to bring Angers their first ever Coue de France trophy. He’ll need his players to be at the top of their game to do so and will rely heavily on the talents of Cheikh Ndoye, Karl Toko Ekambi, and Famara Diedhiou to get them close.
I reality I can only see this going one way and after a disappointing season, Unai Emery will be asking his charges to go out and prove themselves in this last game of the season. The most senible bet I can find is Paris Saint Germain -2 at odds of 1.85 with Pinnacle. At worst I think we’ll get our money back on that one and with a tiny bit of luck (not something I ever like to rely on) we’ll see some winnings as well.
This isn’t a game to bet big on so play it cautiously.