St. Etienne and Paris SG contested the French Cup. The match, after overtime, ended 2-2 and penalty-shoot out followed. Paris SG won it 6-5.
A great historic moment in the dressing room.
St. Etienne empty-handed twice this season. Coming close and losing both rge Cup and the championship. By very little… after all, penalty shoot-out is pure chance. Disappointment, but why make big deal about it? But it was a perfect sign of a team going down – it was not apparent from the squad and it was not a big spectacular failure: it was just they were second instead of first. A small step downhill… St. Etienne was at its peak around 1976 – back then, there were 15 former, current, and future national team players in the squad. Now, there were about 10 and the emphasize was on ‘former’ with clear absence of ‘future’. Lopez, Santini, Rep, Nielsen. True, one of the biggest world stars was playing in green and white – Platini – but for how long? On the surface, there was an excellent opportunity to build a new team around the core of Battiston, Platini, and Rep, but the very status of Platini question that: no French club was able to afford him, which meant to compete with much richer Spanish and Italian clubs. It was quite certain than Platini was not going to stay. Of the old guard only Janvion was maintaining strong position, the others were slowly fading away and that included the Dutch star Johnny Rep. There was no bright young talent – the goalkeeper Castaneda was at best a third choice for the national team and that in a country without great keepers. Herbin did fantastic job managing the team since the beginning of the 1970s, shaping it into one of the strongest teams not just in France, but in Europe, yet it looked like he was losing his touch – a common risk, when a coach works with one club for so long. St. Etienne was still strong and will be strong enough for a few more years, but it was no longer a winning team, the rot started and radical changes were badly needed. What could be clearer: the Cup final, chancy as it was, was in a sense a battle between two generations of St. Etienne: Lopez, Santini, and Janvion lost to their former team-mates Rocheteau and Bathenay.
Paris SG won its first trophy at last. At last, for this club was ambitious project from start. But saying so, one forgets that the club was very young – founded in 1970 and originally playing in the Second Division. Having money to spend, Paris SG quickly got classy players, but the policy was mistaken and there were no results: the team established itself among the top group of French clubs without winning anything. A change of policy was needed and perhaps the only thing to force the club into different and more productive approach was a success: what was not working was signing established, but tired and getting old players. The team was solid but just that. With victory at last, even by mere chance, there was a good chance for making a policy change and really starting building a competitive team – but this was for the future, even near one, but future. The present was champagne and opening of a trophy room.