Young Gard players from Nîmes and Alès still involved in the Gambardella Cup adventure

Les jeunes d’Alès après leur succès face à Balma. OAC

Le premier tour fédéral de l’épreuve nationale réservée aux U18 et U19 voit Nîmes Olympique se déplacer à Clermont-Ferrand. Exempt, Alès est déjà qualifié pour les 32e de finale de la compétition.

In the career of an 18-year-old player, the Coupe Gambardella is a moment not to be missed. Like the Coupe de France for the big boys, it offers its share of emotions and sometimes even magic. Two teams from Gard are still in the running: Nîmes and Alès.

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For Nîmes Olympique (U18 Regional 1), the draw was not kind since it forces them to travel to Puy-de-Dôme to face AS Montferrand, Saturday (2:30 p.m.), an opponent who also plays at the highest regional level. “I tell the players that the Gambardella is their competition, it's an adventure,” explains the coach of the young Nîmes players, Yannick Bileck. “It allows you to play against great teams, great clubs, it's a dream. It's up to them to show themselves on an individual and collective level. We're going to face a great team. We'll see the conditions in Clermont, we'll play on a synthetic pitch. We'll go to win, to qualify, maybe we'll have to go to penalties. We have to be proud to wear the jersey of this great club that is Nîmes Olympique.”

Alès must wait

For their part, the Alès U18s will watch this round from their sofa. They took advantage of the Girondins de Bordeaux's withdrawal to qualify directly for the round of 32, the draw for which will take place on December 19 and the matches scheduled for January. “Feelings are mixed between the disappointment of not playing and the satisfaction of already being qualified,” notes coach Mehdi Sidane.

In the previous round, the Alésiens who play like Nîmes in Regional 1 and are on a series of seven consecutive victories in all competitions, knocked out Balma (Haute-Garonne) in the penalty shootout during the regional finals: “We beat one of the best teams in the region, it was a huge joy to get through that round,” recalls the Alésien coach. It's been about twenty years since the club reached this level, the players are getting used to it. We now hope to come up against a professional club at home.”