The club that gave the world Zinedine Zidane and Patrick Vieira are on the rise after dropping to the seventh division
“The spotlight is on us,” says Cannes CEO Félicien Laborde on a radiant day on the Côte d’Azur as he reflects on the club’s latest giant-killing win in the Coupe de France. And “giant-killing” is the word for a 3-1 win against Guingamp in the quarter-finals; Guingamp are flying high in the second tier and, despite their once-great past, Cannes are down in the fourth tier. Their spectacular run to the semi-finals, where they will face Reims, has put the historic club back on the footballing map.
The quarter-final was a reminder of past glories. It was also a night that bore unmistakable scars of the club’s tumultuous recent history. There were 9,000 fans packed into the Stade Pierre de Coubertin, but that’s 8,000 short of the stadium’s record attendance, which was set back in 1993 before the north and south stands were dismantled – a decline that coincided with the club’s fall from grace and out of the professional game altogether.
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