Paris (AFP)

This is the inevitable of French women's football: the Lyon-Paris SG shock, Sunday in Auxerre (9:00 p.m.) in the final of the Coupe de France, will close the improbable 2019-2020 season of French football and offer a taste of the League. champions, where the two teams could meet at the end of August.

For both men and women, these two clubs never leave each other. If the Coupe de la Ligue preceded the Champions League for the partners of Neymar and Memphis Depay, it is in the Coupe de France that the Lyonnaises and Parisiennes meet, a few days before going to the Spanish Basque Country, place of the final tournament of the women's C1 ("Final 8", from August 21 to 30).

At the Abbé-Deschamps stadium, it will be time to definitively close the 2019-2020 episode of French football, upset by the outbreak of the new coronavirus pandemic, which put an end to all national competitions, except the cups dear to the president of the Federation Noël Le Gräet.

It will above all be a question of gauging the existing gap between these two ogres of French women's football, the Lyon champion and his Parisian runner-up, who also won the last Cup final between the two teams in 2018. have not been able to challenge each other since November and the short Lyon victory (1-0) in the first leg of D1: the long-awaited return match, scheduled for March, could never be held and precipitated the coronation of Lyon, which was only three points ahead of Paris.

- Europe in focus -

It will above all be a matter of settling the final preparations for the Ladies' Champions League, the culmination of this improbable season. The two clubs are in the quarter-finals, and could meet on August 26 in the semi-final if OL beats Bayern Munich and PSG has Arsenal a few days earlier.

"There are only 90 minutes left to go for a title, and a final is won. We will go to Auxerre to recover this title" left to the Lyonnaises last season, said Parisian coach Olivier Echouafni afterwards. of the semi-final won in extremis against Bordeaux (2-1).

For Wendy Renard's partners, an eleventh title is within reach for the ... 19th edition of this competition.

But after a complicated semi-final (1-0 against Guingamp), beware of overconfidence. "We are preparing on a daily basis. We must not overplay this final, play it before," warned coach Jean-Luc Vasseur. "This first game surprised us because it has been a while since our daughters have played under the pressure of the competition and the stakes, and things haven't gone the way we would have liked."

The stake will only be increased tenfold a few days later in the European Cup. Another field where Lyon, four-time defending champion, seems untouchable.

© 2020 AFP