Paris Saint-Germain and Lens faced off this Sunday at Stade Bollaert in the round of 32 of the Coupe de France 2024-2025. The match ended in a Parisian victory on penalties after a 1-1 draw in normal time. After the match, Lens coach Will Still had some strong words to say at a press conference.
Still “I don’t think it was the team that deserved it that qualified”.
“I don’t think it was the team that deserved to qualify. We put in a very good performance overall. The game plan was perfectly executed by the players, and I couldn’t be prouder of the whole squad, because even the newcomers did us a world of good. The only thing missing was that last trick.
It’s a bit like our first half of the season… Pfff, it’s frustrating. Then we take a goal on a mistake. It’s annoying because we’d done more than enough to qualify. I’m not interested in the penalty shootout.”
Still was visibly bitter after the elimination, and partly understandably so. His team came within a whisker of pulling off a huge upset against PSG. In the final analysis, it comes down to a few things, and penalties are always cruel.
Before that, Lens had, of course, given Paris a run for their money. However, to say that Lens deserved more is a bit of an exaggeration. They were in particularly good form against the somewhat timid Parisians, but there was no dominance either.
And let’s not forget Achraf Hakimi’s opening goal, which was unfairly disallowed. It’s hard to talk about “merit” after that. After all, PSG didn’t “steal” their qualification.
