French Cup: Cannes, 4th division club, qualified for the semi-finals

Before the match between Saint-Brieuc and PSG scheduled for tomorrow, the first quarter-finals of the Coupe de France took place this Tuesday evening. With only four Ligue 1 clubs involved at this stage of the competition, the door was wide open for exploits. And AS Cannes, a National 2 resident who faced Guingamp (Ligue 2) at the Pierre-de-Coubertin stadium, understood this well by achieving the feat of winning and qualifying for the semi-finals.

Highly motivated, the Côte d'Azur club completely outwitted the Bretons. Although the advantage was rather on the Guingamp side at the start of the match, with a sudden left-footed strike from Amine Hemia on the crossbar after 10 minutes, Cannes were not going to let their dream stop there. Off-center on the right side, Chafik Abbas fixes two opposing defenders, enters the axis and sends a beautiful left-footed curl into the goal of Babacar Niasse, caught at the near post.

Seven minutes later, at the half-hour mark, the Mauritanian goalkeeper misses his clearance towards midfield. With his back to the goal, Cannes' Cédric Gonçalves turns and sends a wonderful lob from almost fifty meters that Niasse can only slow down, with a nice handling error, and let enter his net. The feat is underway, Cannes leads 2-0 at half-time.

After the break, it only took a few seconds for Guingamp to wake up. Full-back Dylan Ourega, on the left, delivered a superb cross to Jacques Siwe's head, who beat Cannes' vigilance to get his team back on track. We thought Guingamp were reinvigorated and on the road to a comeback. But Julien Domingues, who had already scored a superb overhead kick in the round of 16, came back to give AS Cannes a second goal lead with a superb right-footed chip.

A gap sufficient to allow him to calmly finish the match and validate his feat by reaching the last four of the Coupe de France. After Calais (2000), Montceau-les-Mines (2007), Quevilly (2010), Rumilly (2021) and Versailles (2022), Cannes is the 6th 4th division club to qualify for the semi-finals of the Coupe de France since the beginning of the 2000s.

In the other match of the evening, Reims and Angers faced off at the Raymond Kopa stadium for a 100% Ligue 1 duel. In a match lacking in chances and rich in technical waste, the Champenois thought they would win in regulation time thanks to a goal from Keito Nakamura ten minutes from the end. The Japanese striker was able to take advantage of an Angevin marking error to place a powerful header into Melvin Zinga's net on a cross from another Japanese player, full-back Hiroki Sekine.

But that was without counting on the resilience of SCO. At the end of added time, in the 96th minute, Bamba Dieng attempted an acrobatic overhead kick which he missed, but which miraculously reached the small right net of Yehvann Diouf to allow his team to snatch the penalty shootout.

At the end of a penalty shootout, already the third for Reims in four rounds, Angers lost following a miss by their captain Ibrahima Niane. Having already eliminated Monaco and Bourgoin-Jallieu after the final whistle, the Rémois reproduced this pattern again and validated their qualification for the last four of the Coupe de France for the first time since 1988.

After Saint-Brieuc - PSG and Brest - Dunkerque, scheduled for tomorrow, the draw for the semi-finals of the Coupe de France will take place on Thursday, February 27 from 7:50 p.m.