This Wednesday, Virginie Phulpin is impatient to see the quarter-final of the French Cup which must see OL and OM clash this evening at 9:05 pm. A meeting between two teams who have skillfully orchestrated their rivalry and who intend to drop nothing on the lawn.

This is the sports editorial by Virginie Phulpin. Rennes beat Belfort yesterday in the quarterfinal of the French football cup. The big poster tonight is Lyon-Marseille. For you, there is more folklore and rivalry than at stake in this match, and that is also what we like.

We can tell all the stories we want, the French Cup, it makes a pretty line in the charts, especially when we have won nothing since 2012 like Lyon and Marseille, but it is not the quest for season for these two clubs. Especially since it is random. Whoever wins this evening, at some point, you will no doubt have to face PSG, as much as to say that the trophy is not yet really in the window ...

But yes, the two Olympics face to face, it's a great rivalry. How's that two Olympics? There is only one, according to Marseille defender Alvaro Gonzalez. He arrived last summer, he quickly got in the mood. I admit that I like this kind of half-untimely, half-calculated outing. It pleases the supporters, it gives relief to the meeting. And then the Marseillais found who to talk to. Opposite, with the President of Lyon Jean-Michel Aulas, you just have to put a small part in the machine and it starts immediately. OM do not respect financial fair play, and then we did not want to play on Wednesday but on Thursday, and then watch with the storm we returned from Paris later than expected…

Attacks a bit petty, nice mockery and traditional "ouin-ouin", everything goes ... And yes, I find that it gives flavor to this meeting. It's not just a match, it's a whole folklore around, and for me that's also football. An appointment that we talk about the whole day before, with a good dose of bad faith. A meeting which we can also talk about afterwards, we trust the actors to find a little controversy during the match, even if we have to invent it.

The two clubs skillfully orchestrate their rivalry

That's how we keep passion alive, right? Otherwise, if you look at things coldly, there is a club above others in France, and this is Paris St-Germain. So what do we do behind, in Lyon and Marseille? We live in the shade? No ! We play on this rivalry and we make tons of it on the oppositions between the two Olympics. Between OM, which prefers that we look at its current results rather than its finances and their future consequences, and OL, which brandishes its profits to avoid talking about its performance on the ground, there is plenty to do in opposition matters.

And when it is overplayed with humor, yes, it makes me want to see them face to face this evening. I do not know if it is by dint of exacerbating rivalries, I am sure that it participates in any case, but in recent years, we never get bored in front of a Lyon-Marseille. Nobody wants to let go. It has at least one thing in common. And it gives all its flavor to this quarter-final.