It is a match in unique conditions that the players of the FC Versailles football club will play. This Saturday, his players will play in the round of 16 of the Coupe de France in Toulouse, in Haute-Garonne and not at home. The reason ? A rule stipulates that no source of light should be visible from the bedroom of King Louis XVI. As the Montbauron Stadium is located within a radius of less than 5 km, it is impossible to install lighting there. Hence the reversal of the meeting, to the chagrin of midfielder Melvyn Vieira.
“We want a bit of the history of France,” said Melvyn Vieira, midfielder FC Versailles, a club with 1,100 members. “Afterwards, there is something in fact, to say to themselves that they have reversed the match. We can do something even bigger, when no one is waiting for us. They have their mark, it’s their stadium . We can go do something there and make it even better.”
An ascent for the Yvelines club
The leader of group A of Nationale 2 is already living a historic adventure. This is his first round of 16 of the Coupe de France in the life of the club, and which will take place against Toulouse FC. A great rise for Versailles, which saw the arrival of new investors in November, with the ambition of moving up to National (the 3rd French division) at the end of this season. It was at this time that Jean-Luc Arribart was appointed general manager of the club. “In the previous round, we already played at home thanks to an exemption from the FFF,” said the latter. “From the moment we can no longer continue the adventure in Montbauron, the party is ruined for us. When we knew that we could not receive in Montbauron, we said to ourselves that we had to find the least bad of the bad solutions. We looked at all the possible hypotheses around Versailles, and in the end, there was nothing satisfactory. And we decided to reverse the order of the meeting.
This match is a reward for coach Youssef Chibhi, present since 2014. It is he who has the mission to prepare the team for this event. “What is important is that they can also savor this moment, that they can see that it is an event, but which is not a match that inhibits them”, relativizes Youssef Chibhi, coach of FC Versailles . “But I kept a rather mature group. They are quite lucid and intelligent, not to stray from the objectives, in particular the main objective which is that of the championship. Even if we are going to do everything so that this enchanted parenthesis can continue.”
And Versailles will still be able to count on the presence in Toulouse of several dozen supporters, who have left since 5:30 a.m. this morning by bus for a journey of nearly 700 km.