Lens – TFC: without Yann Gboho, suspended, what solutions and what composition for the semi-final of the Coupe de France on Tuesday?

As much as it complicated the Violets’ task Friday evening at Bollaert, the red card received by Yann Gboho in the 17th minute of play reduces their chances for the semi-final of the Coupe de France, Tuesday evening on the same ground. Already deprived of Mark McKenzie, also suspended, Carles Martinez Novell will have to do without his playing master, the Toulouse player who has the most minutes of play this season and has the most full statistics sheet. Author of 10 goals in all competitions, Yann Gboho remains TFC’s number 1 danger creator, the only one, with, to a lesser extent, Aron Dönnum, to be able to turn matches around on his own.

Seny Koumbassa has proven himself

Without these two players, and while the Haut-Garonne club has decided to do without Frank Magri, sidelined due to the failure of negotiations on the extension of his contract, the Catalan coach’s options for modifying his starting lineup become very limited, almost nil. Friday evening, Martinez Novell had decided – like his counterpart Pierre Sage – to let several players breathe. We can imagine that Djibril Sidibé and Demba Diop, replacements at kick-off, will start on Tuesday, the first at the right piston position and the second in the midfield. It should be the same for Dayann Methalie, who will find in the left lane the place occupied by Warren Kamanzi, whose defensive errors could be prohibitive for a Coupe de France semi-final. In the middle, without McKenzie, Seny Koumbassa, scorer on Friday, is gaining depth and has reassured about his ability to be at the level in an electric atmosphere and a match where the TFC suffered like rarely.

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ANALYSIS. Lens – TFC: a red that leaves a stain… Reduced to 10 while leading 2-0, Toulouse shot themselves in the foot

Up front, Aron Dönnum should logically move up a notch to occupy one wing, while the other could be led by Santiago Hidalgo, and we will expect a lot from these two players to find the connection, even the madness, which cannot come from the feet of Yann Gboho. Eleven against eleven, in a direct elimination game, it’s a completely different match that awaits the TFC on Tuesday at Bollaert, facing a RC Lens pumped up by Friday’s scenario, which should, this time, line up Thauvin and Edouard from the start, and whose communion with its public after Ganiou’s winning goal suggests an overheated setting on Tuesday evening. We will have to be strong, very strong to cool him down, but if there is a team capable of doing it, it is this TFC, never as good as when he has to suffer and punish. “Our path in the Coupe de France was not easy. We have already been to the Vélodrome in Marseille (in the quarter-final), we are capable of doing something here” said Carles Martinez Novell, facing one of the biggest challenges of his career.