The fifth day of the league 2 championship was an opportunity for Quevilly-Rouen-Métropole to win its very first victory of the season against Pau. Caen and Le Havre, however dominating, only managed to get a draw. The “Bas-Norman” club, however, retains first place in the standings.
If the players celebrated their first victory of the season as they should when they returned to the locker room, the QRM coach, Olivier Echouafni, he preferred to keep a cool head this Saturday evening. “The contract is completed on the accounting side. On the other hand, at the level of the game, we will have to rework. (…) The important thing is to have known how to react, but we will not always be able to react in this way.“The two teams, looking for a first success this season, did not really shine during the first period of play. “Given our first forty-five minutes, I want to say that it was laborious”, commented the coach of the Norman club.It’s not a non-match but, at least, we open the scoring“, declared for his part Didier Tholot, the coach of the opposing club.
Because it was Pau FC who opened the scoring this Saturday evening at the Robert Diochon stadium in the 50th minute thanks to a header from Henri Saivet on a free kick from Jean Ruiz. Ten minutes later, the Normans believe to come back to the score but the shot from Garland Gbelle ends up in the side netting. It was finally Issa Soumaré who reset the counters “to zero” in the 69th minute. Confidence then changed sides and the Normans, on their ground, imposed their rhythm and ended up taking off thanks to an uncrossed strike from Gustavo Sangaré (76th minute). Final score: 2-1 for QRM and a twelfth place in the league 2 standings.
Two places ahead (the 10th), there is another Norman club, Le Havre. However, the Sky and Marine could have hoped for better with regard to their performance this Saturday evening. But after delivering a real lesson last week in Saint-Etienne (6-0 for the Normans), the men Luka Elsner still fail to win at home this season. The cold shower fell on the Océane stadium from the first quarter of an hour of play. The only real chance for Amiens ended in success. Tolu Arokodare, alone in front of the goal, opens the scoring. The Normans will then try everything to come back to their opponents and will not stop putting pressure. But despite the multiple attacks on the Picardy cages, it was not until the 72nd minute that Jamal Thiaré scored the goal of equalization. And the last of the meeting. The two teams leave on the score of 1 everywhere. “The feeling that dominates is the pride of having produced such a match. Yes, the boys can be proud. We were able to come back, but without being really rewarded“, regretted the Le Havre coach after the final whistle.
At the top of the standings, it is still the Stade Malherbe which occupies the first place. But the leader now has as many points as his first pursuer, Dijon. This Saturday evening, the Lower Normandy club will have suffered a fate both similar and opposite to that of its enemy brothers on the other side of the Seine. Dominant, Stade Malherbe saw victory slip away from them in the last minutes of the match. On their ground, the Normans largely flew over the first period of play, multiplying the clear opportunities against a Paris FC reduced to making up the numbers. The efforts finally paid off shortly before the break when Romain Thomas opened the scoring with a header from a nice free kick from Ali Abdi.
Stéphane Moulin’s men failed to double up on two occasions. But when Bilal Brahimi stumbles on the bar of the Parisians in the 60th minute, the latter suddenly come out of their torpor and the Norman goalkeeper, so far sheltered, must multiply the outings to counter the return of flames (four stops in l space of two minutes). The second and last goal of the match will be credited to Paris FC. Julien Lopez ends up finding the fault in the 84th minute and equalizes. “I was eager to see how we were going to behave in a match like this with this status as a leader. I think the players behaved well. Now, inevitably, on this end of the match, I find that we lack a little experience“, analyzed Stéphane Moulin after the final whistle, “JI think the score makes sense. We played a team from Paris who raised their voices over the last 20 minutes and which put us in difficulty, due to the quality of their players. You have to know how to recognize the quality of the adversary.”