The second goalkeeper of a Ligue 2 mid-table club has saved the penalty of a former Barça and Arsenal player. Late in the game, Thomas Callens, two second division games on the clock, deflected Alexis Sanchez’s attempt. A feat to protect the goal in advance of Annecy. A heroic act erased a few minutes later by the rather lucky goal of François Régis Mughe (90th + 6). The young Marseille (18) offered a ticket to OM for the penalty shootout.
With his stop in front of Sanchez, Callens also approached this session with the memory of his five shots on goal saved during the Annecy course. Faced with such a pedigree, Nuno Tavares then Leonardo Balerdi cracked (2-2, 7-6 on tab). The 24-year-old goalkeeper propelled his club to the Coupe de France semi-finals. While the 1.82m goalkeeper wrote the most beautiful sentence in the history of the Haute-Savoie team, victorious for the third time on penalties during this edition, the Marseillais suffered a new disappointment.
In three days, OM lost big. Cooled down by Paris Saint-Germain at the Vélodrome on Sunday (0-3), pushed back to eight points from the leader of Ligue 1, the players of Igor Tudor were overthrown in the quarter-finals of the Cup. Les Anneciens, tenth in Ligue 2, did not show up at the Vélodrome to undergo. Once in front of the scoreboard, they continued to threaten Pau Lopez’s cage, without backing down in the face of the Marseilles’ eagerness.
Annecy at the table of the big ones
It must be said that Kevin Mouanga displayed an astonishing serenity when celebrating his goal in the 59th minute. Upon receiving a corner, the central back got the better of Valentin Rongier and Balerdi: 2 to 1 for Annecy. Six minutes earlier, Moïse Sahi had already caused a wind of concern to blow over the Marseille city by adjusting Lopez following a good ball exit from François Lajugie.
For Marseille, the problems had not started with this equalizing goal. If Jordan Veretout had opened the scoring at the half-hour mark, marking the day of his thirtieth birthday, OM felt the beginnings of an evening that was not going to end in a good way from the first period. Shortly before the break, Ruslan Malinovskyi violently found the bar.
As if to reward the audacity of Laurent Guyot’s band, Chancel Mbemba saw his header attempt fail on the left post of Callens (72nd). The Haut-Savoyard goalkeeper prevented one of his defenders from scoring against his camp before shining during the penalty shootout. Marseille’s hopes evaporated at the same time as the prospect of 100% Ligue 1 semi-finals. Lyon, Nantes and Toulouse, respectively fellers of Grenoble (2-1), Lens (2-1) and Rodez (6-1 ) could expect to welcome their Marseille counterpart to the magic square.
Annecy finally invited itself to the table of the big ones. The L2 club had reached the quarter-finals for the first time in its history. He will know more about the rest of his epic on Thursday, with the draw for the semi-finals.