Ligue 1 champions and eight-time Coupe de France winners Paris Saint-Germain travel to Brittany on Wednesday to face Brest in what could prove to be a tricky encounter. Alex Dupont’s side were relegated from Ligue 1 last season and are struggling in the second tier this time around, sitting in 15th place, just two points above the relegation zone.
The clash at Stade Francis-Le-Ble represents a good opportunity for the 1983 quarterfinalists to forget about their current strife in Ligue 2 and regain a bit of confidence ahead of the second half of the season.
Dupont’s side will be helped by the fact that PSG played Real Madrid in a prestigious friendly in Doha just three days before the original scheduled date, but since then have been in limbo over their trip to western France with another long trip (Saturday vs. Ajaccio in Corsica) on the horizon.
Laurent Blanc will likely field a heavily rotated side with big guns such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani and Thiago Silva sure to play a big role in both matches, while his squad flexibility will be tested by the absences of Marco Verratti and Christophe Jallet through injury.
Brest will be grateful for the extra rest though and can approach the match more or less at full strength, coming off the back of a relatively successful December given that they managed to arrest an alarming run of three straight league defeats with two consecutive draws.
The hosts have not won in Ligue 2 since a 1-0 away victory in Le Havre back at the end of October and triumphs over Sable FC, PSG’s round of 32 opponents in 2012, and AS Cherbourg have provided the only relief in an otherwise gloomy first half of the season.
In fact, Brest have won just four games all campaign and were beaten 3-1 the last time the two sides met, at the Parc des Princes, back in May. That day the Finistere side served as the hors d’oeuvres before PSG’s first title celebrations in 19 years and they were also the final opponents in David Beckham’s long and illustrious career.
Based on current form, the Ligue 2 outfit have little chance of upsetting the Parisian juggernaut. Blanc’s men may well have suffered a surprise 2-0 defeat away to Evian Thonon Gaillard in early December, but they have recovered well and a win will keep their dreams of success on four separate fronts alive heading into 2014.
Dupont and Brest’s best chance of pulling off a cup shock will be to hope that PSG over-rotate and the poor state of their pitch plays into the hosts’ hands.
The visitors are notoriously slow starters in the Coupe de France and only narrowly beat Arras 4-3 away last year, needing a last-gasp Diego Lugano goal in Morbihan to edge past Saint-Colomban Locmine 2-1 the season before.