Two rooms, two atmospheres. In the Paris FC locker room, people sing, shout and demand a double bonus (accepted) from President Pierre Ferracci. A few meters away, in that of Sochaux, a big altercation between players. The summary of a shock which turned in favor of Paris FC in the second half with three goals in six minutes (70th, 73rd, 76th) when it was behind. The identity of the scorers further confirms that the winter transfer window was successful since Khalid Boutaïb (2nd goal in 3 games) and Lamine Gueye (2nd goal in 4 games) scored again. Morgan Guilavogui, who entered on time at the same time as Julien Lopez, took his counter to 11 goals and made a decisive deflection for Gueye. As Omar Daf, the Sochaux coach, pointed out, the “PFC bench made the difference. “. Few L2 teams have such a variety of attacking choices and can afford to let their top scorer (Guilavogui) start a decisive match on the bench.
Laurey’s good words at half-time
In this shock, everything was certainly also played at half-time. As at Guingamp (1-1) last Saturday, Paris FC had gone through its first period. But he came back transformed. “We had another thought about the game, explains Thierry Laurey. They had to be revitalized because they were tense. I told them: you guys are not gambling your life. I am the happiest of men after this victory. But if we had lost, it wouldn’t have been a disaster. At worst, we would have stayed 2nd. So we had no reason to put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. All this shows that we still have to improve in certain areas. »
Moustapha Name recognizes “that the coach knew how to use the right words and boost us”. “We were soft, continues the African champion with Senegal. But we remained calm between us, the coach, the staff and the experienced players spoke well. We said to ourselves that we had to go for this victory but in an intelligent way, not just anyhow. We put the right ingredients in the 2nd period and we found the great Paris FC. We had a remarkable, quality half-time that gave us this magnificent victory against a direct competitor. It was a special match, it’s a big blow. We proved again after our victories in Le Havre, Auxerre and against AC Ajaccio that we really liked big games. Winning these kinds of matches makes the difference in the end. »
“The more we advance, the more our opponents want to bring us down”
After this 14th match without defeat (10 wins, 4 draws), Paris FC finds itself on the royal road. The Toulouse dolphin (tied) relegates Sochaux (5th) to seven points. It’s starting to smell good for a direct climb. The incident in their locker room and the faces of the Sochaliens also showed that they took a big hit behind the head during this sunny Saturday in Charléty. “We came across a Paris FC team stronger than us, but we won’t let go,” warns Omar Daf.
Paris FC, which lost Lamine Gueye (sprain) injured on the action of his goal, will travel to Nîmes next Saturday to take a new step towards this historic rise in L1. But true to form, Thierry Laurey, already promoted with Gazélec Ajaccio (2015) and Strasbourg (2017) wants to temper growing enthusiasm. “We know that it will not be easy in Nîmes, he believes. Once again, it tipped in our direction but at half-time you would have given another speech in front of me. We know that we don’t have a lot of margin on many teams. You have to be careful. This series of 14 games is heavy. Of course, we want to stay undefeated for as long as possible, but the further we go, the more our opponents want to bring us down. You have to accept it and not fear the day when it will happen. But these 14 unbeaten matches, these 7 points ahead of Sochaux, it’s true that it’s not trivial. »
