French Cup. Before Monaco-RAF, Saturday: the Rodez club forever linked to the event
There would never have been professional football in Rodez if the Aveyron club had not lived through an epic Coupe de France in 1991 which grafted fierce ambition into its DNA. Retro while, Saturday January 7 at 6 p.m., the Rouergats move on the Rock and challenge Monaco.
Ruthenian football is now professional. It took time to adopt the codes and customs but that is done. By force, by lucidity, the president Pierre-Olivier Murat had to resolve to do like the others and, thus, very recently went away the trainer Laurent Peyrelade. However, this professional football has always been a goal in Rodez. Certainly, it was not shouted from the rooftops…
He owes it to this epic Coupe de France where the players of Michel Poisson, then playing in D2, had gone to finish their journey in the semi-finals at the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille, on Sunday June 2, 1991. Since that date, Ruthenian football vibrates, thinks, breathes a fierce ambition.
Waiting for chills
The public is waiting for these thrills that only the high level provides. The new Paul-Lignon stadium with its English configuration is a setting designed to let this lava of passion flow. The words are not too strong. The 1991 Coupe de France marked the spirits of the Aveyronnais.
From that time, we tell each other about train trips to Annecy or Marseille. We are talking about these tubular stands erected behind the goals of Paul-Lignon when coming from Metz and Sochaux. There hadn’t been the drama of Furiani yet. People stamped their feet, the stands resounded with their metallic noise, carried their “blood and gold” team. Times of passion whose elders drool the hours and sensations to the youngest fed to this combat football. They themselves then took their children to Lignon. The Cup is conducive to this sharing of passions. He needs warriors who sublimate themselves.
The Aveyron supporter experiences football this way. Only this way. This germ has always lived in the heads of Ruthenian football licensees with more or less success since the epic of 1991.
To understand Rodez football is to hear this desire to relive these hours of passion. This is his spine.
A quarter-final in 2009
To shine in the Coupe de France is random, cannot be decided, is improvised according to the results. Moreover, President Pierre-Olivier Murat does not budget for possible revenue from the Coupe de France in his financial management plan. However, in 2009, coach Franck Rizzetto and his National team led Ruthenian football to the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France. For this, in March 2009, the RAF eliminated Paul Le Guen’s PSG at Paul-Lignon 3 to 1. It was not yet the Qatar version of the club, but the Parisians were still playing at the top of Ligue 1.
A few days later, the Ruthenian adventure ended in the quarter-finals in Rennes with a score of 2 to 0.
Since then, the Coupe de France has been fleeing Rodez. The Aveyronnais have missed many entries in this competition for years.
On the other hand, they managed to move from CFA to Ligue 2 where they have been present for 4 seasons with the smallest budget in the competition and a stadium whose metamorphosis was an absolute necessity.
This Saturday at the start of the evening and in the Principality, Rodez AF will play in the Coupe de France in Monaco after qualifying when they entered the competition in Saint-Étienne (0-0, 3-4 on pens).
So, the beginning of a new adventure?