FC SOCHAUX-MONTBELIARD (Stade Auguste Bonal)

COUPE DE LA LIGUE, FC SOCHAUX-MONTBELIARD 1-1 FC STADE BRESTOIS*
ATTENDANCE: 5,887                                                          *Won 4-3 on penalties

The final leg of my journey took me across Switzerland to just over the border into France. I had spent the Monday night in Zurich where, although there was no football game involved, I took a tram up to FIFA headquarters to have a little nose around!

I was flying home from Basel on Wednesday so when the French league cup threw up a fixture 8 miles over the border, with FC Sochaux-Montbeliard playing at home, then it was an absolute no brainer and allowed me to complete four games in four countries in four days.

Sochaux is famous as the home of the Peugeot, with the family starting manufacturing in the town in 1810 with the production of bicycles. The company diversified into coffee, pepper and salt grinders in the mid-19th century before the manufacture of cars began in 1889. Peugeot's lion badge is derived from the town's coat-of-arms. The Peugeot museum is located in the town but time constraints meant I had no time to visit.

FC Sochaux-Montbeliard (FCSM) were founded in 1928, so are celebrating their 90th anniversary this year. The club was founded by Jean-Pierre Peugeot to create a football club for the leisure time of the company's workers.

The Stade Auguste Bonal has been home for (almost) the entire history of FCSM. After just three years of existence, FCSM were attracting large huge crowds to their matches so the directors of Peugeot decided to create a stadium specifically for the football club. This was constructed next to the forges section of the Peugeot car factory and on 11th November 1931, in the now named Stade de la Forge, the inaugural game took place with FCSM beating Stade Français in the Coupe de Peugeot.

 The capacity of the stadium was increased to 10,000 by the mid 1930's with the construction of new stands and the ground remained largely the same until the late 1990's when all four sides were completely rebuilt to create a modern 20,000 capacity stadium. The ground was renamed the Stade Auguste Bonal as a tribute to FCSM/Peugeot director Auguste Bonal who was deported to a concentration camp in Germany, where he died in April 1945.

FCSM's glory days were in their early years in the 1930's when they clinched the French League title twice in 1935 and 1938 and the French Cup in 1937. Their only recent honours have been a League Cup victory in 2004 and another French Cup win in 2007. FCSM did have a run to the semi-final of the UEFA Cup in 1981, where they lost to AZ Alkmaar.

The club are currently in Ligue 2 after relegation in 2014 but this evening was all about the League Cup. FCSM were hosting Stade Brestois, who embarked on a 2000km return journey from Brest for this cup tie (and would be making the same trip again on Friday for a league game).

Clearly there is the same level of appetite for the league cup in France as there is in England, so tickets were reduced to ‎€5 in order to tempt the punters in. It seemed to work as the crowd was just under 6,000 which is around the average for FCSM. There is also the fact that just 6 Brest fans (pictured above, left) were sat in the away end, so hats off to them for making the previously mentioned 2000km round trip.

Those hardy supporters From Brittany were rewarded with a victory for Stade Brestois, but it did need a penalty shoot out in order to secure their place in the next round.

In a game of few clear cut chances, Brest took the lead when Mathias Autret (25) side-footed home a cross from Valentin Henry. The home supporters were not happy as the boos and whistles rang out at half time.

The game was petering out to an away win but then a cross-shot from Ermedin Demirović (75) was turned into his own goal by Brendan Chardonnet who, to be fair to him, couldn't really do anything about it.

There is no extra time in the league cup in France and at 90 minutes the tie went straight to penalties. The shoot out swung one way and the other, courtesy of some poor spot kicks, but eventually it was left to Ibrahima Diallo to slot home the winner for Stade Brest (pictured below).