The board sees French Cup as a fairly important competition. The minimum expectation is that the team reach the Semi Final of the French Cup. Cup competition is always a good opportunity that allows your younger players to shine. My journey to the French Cup Final is pretty challenging as well. One of the highlights was the 4-3 win against AS Saint-Etienne.
vs AS Saint-Etienne
This was the first cup game I had with Lyon and it was the 9th round of the cup. I actually put on a pretty strong team to fight with them as I know AS Saint-Etienne is not a weak team. To be fair, we were having a tough time and only scored the winning goal at the 91st minute.
I made a gamble in this game by choosing Marcal as the left back and Caqueret as the DLP Support. Marcal hasn’t started a game before, so does Caqueret. Unfortunately, Marcal made a mistake leading to goal despite providing a key pass at the 8th minute. I thought he did ok in his first game after an injury, but he can definitely do better. Caqueret had a pretty solid game as a DLP support. He gained 2 possessions and made 2 key passes with 0 mistake and 0 possession lost.
The game changer is Jeff Reine-Adelaide as he was the one who provided the final assist to the winning goal. He made 2 successful dribbles in the game and one of them turns into an assist.
vs Bordeaux
When I was looking at the scouting report, I focused on the opponent’s weaknesses. It showed their marking wasn’t the best and I felt like we should tackle this specific area. The only instruction that I added was Run At Defence. I was very confident because both Depay and Traore are good dribblers and they are fast.
To be honest, I thought the final was one of the easier games in the season. We basically dominated the possession and only allowed them to take 4 shots in the entire 90 minutes. They gave away an early penalty at the 14th minute and allowed us to take the lead comfortably. We then extended our lead at the 32nd minute where Bertrand Traore headed the ball into the net after receiving a set piece cross by Leo Dubois. The final goal was one of the best goals I have seen in FM20. Memphis Depay made a wonderful dribble and hit a through pass to Moussa Dembele, the Frenchman then powered his shot into the bottom of the net. It was an easy win to be fair.
Overall, I was pretty happy that I won the French Cup at the first season with OL and achieved my first ever trophy with the team. Next up, I am going to play against PSG and this game will be the title decider match. I am looking forward to it and I can’t wait to share the result with you guys as well. Win or not, it is going to be a challenging but fun game.
ABT Football Manager 