Coupe de France

IBRAHIMOVIC ! #PSGOL pic.twitter.com/NLNQTQXUke

— Guillaume L (@GuillaumeL_) February 10, 2016

Zlatan Ibrahimovic continued his fine goalscoring campaign with two more goals as Paris Saint-Germain beat Lyon in the French Cup on Wednesday.

The two sides played out a goalless first half at the Parc des Princes before Ibrahimovic broke the deadlock shortly after the hour with a bundled effort from close range.

The Swedish talisman soon had another, turning home Serge Aurier's low cross with a simple finish.

DOUBLE IBRAHIMOVIC ! #PSGOL pic.twitter.com/Mj261HFEyZ

— Guillaume L (@GuillaumeL_) February 10, 2016

Adrien Rabiot made it three for the hosts after 75 minutes, making his way into the box unmarked to convert Maxwell's cross.

Et 3-0 ! Rabiot ! #PSGOL pic.twitter.com/4HAbrw83NL

— Guillaume L (@GuillaumeL_) February 10, 2016

PSG held on to book their place in the quarter-finals.

[Twitter]

Defending champions Paris Saint-Germain will host Olympique Lyonnais in the Coupe de France round of 16 at Parc des Princes on Wednesday.

Les Gones, five-time winners of the trophy themselves, are hoping to become the first team to beat Les Parisiens domestically this season.

Date: Wednesday, February 10

Time: 9:05 p.m. CET (8:05 p.m. GMT/3:05 p.m. ET)

Venue: Parc des Princes, Paris, France

TV Info: France 3 (France) and beIN Sports 3 (USA)

Live Stream: beIN Sports Connect

Preamble

Nine-time Coupe de France winners PSG welcome Lyon to the capital on Wednesday with one eye already firmly fixed on next week’s UEFA Champions League last 16 home meeting with Chelsea.

Lille OSC is the runaway Ligue 1 leader's opponent in this weekend’s league fixture, and chances are that manager Laurent Blanc will rest many of his key players ahead of the visit from the Blues.

Although Le President would like to rest many of his star names against Lyon as well, the men from the capital will be keen to avoid defeat at home to one of their bigger domestic rivals.

PSG have beaten ES Wasquehal and Toulouse FC to get here, while Lyon disposed of Limoges FC and Chambly en route to Paris.

Le Championnat’s leader has put out largely weakened sides so far in the competition, but Blanc will be tempted to name as strong a starting XI as he can.

If Lyon manage to escape Parc des Princes with a win—in normal time, after extra time or even penalties—then it will end PSG’s hopes of repeating last season’s domestic sweep and aspirations to win all five pieces of silverware that they are pursuing.

Form Lines (all competitions)

PSG

W 5-1 vs. Angers SCO (Ligue 1)

W 2-0 vs. Toulouse (Coupe de la Ligue)

W 0-2 at AS Saint-Etienne (Ligue 1)

W 3-1 vs. Lorient (Ligue 1)

W 1-2 at Olympique de Marseille (Ligue 1)

Lyon

W 0-2 vs. FC Chambly-Thelle (Coupe de France)

D 1-1 vs. Marseille (Ligue 1)

L 1-0 at SC Bastia (Ligue 1)

W 3-0 vs. Girondins de Bordeaux (Ligue 1)

W 0-3 at Angers SCO (Ligue 1)

Predicted Formations

Paris-Lyon : Les compos probables (L'Équipe) #PSGOL #PSG pic.twitter.com/WFmT1i5TwA

— Paris No Limit™ (@ParisNoLimit) February 10, 2016

PSG (4-3-3): Sirigu; Aurier, Silva (c), Marquinhos, Maxwell; Motta, Stambouli, Rabiot; Di Maria, Ibrahimovic, Cavani

Lyon (4-3-3): Lopes; Jallet, Kone, Umtiti, Bedimo; Gonalons (c), Ferri, Darder; Cornet, Lacazette, Valbuena

Player to Watch

After the immense success of last season, Lyon’s Corentin Tolisso struggled at the start of this campaign and has only began to find his feet again in recent weeks.

The talented and versatile midfielder lost himself—as did many—under former coach Hubert Fournier, but the France under-21 international appears to have rediscovered himself since Bruno Genesio took charge of the side.

Since the start of 2016—Genesio replaced Fournier during the winter break—Tolisso has scored four times and provided an assist. Over the first half of the campaign, the 21-year-old contributed just one goal and two assists and was central to more issues off the pitch than on it.

The Lyon No. 8 scored a sublime goal in OL’s 2-1 Coupe de la Ligue defeat away at PSG back in January and was one of Les Gones’ best players that evening.

If Tolisso starts on Wednesday and can replicate that sort of performance, then Lyon may well be able to return to Parc OL with a place in the Coupe de France quarter-finals.

Key Battle

With Marco Verratti out injured and Thiago Motta and Blaise Matuidi expected to be rested, Lyon must pinpoint the battle with the PSG midfield as the key duel to win Wednesday.

If Genesio can align a strong midfield trio to go up against the likes of Benjamin Stambouli, Adrien Rabiot and possibly Hervin Ongenda, then OL should be able to dominate that area of the pitch.

Unless Angel Di Maria starts, Les Parisiens will be starved for creativity; Les Gones need to capitalise on their host's key absentees to inflict a rare home defeat on the French champions.

Odds (via Oddschecker)

PSG: 2-5

Lyon: 17-2

Draw: 21-5

Paris Saint-Germain and Toulouse meet for the second time in three days when the pair face each other in the Coupe de France round of 32 at Parc des Princes on Tuesday.

With a Coupe de la Ligue semi-final to come, this encounter is the second of three between the two clubs in the space of just 11 days.

Date: Tuesday, January 19

Time: 9:00 p.m. CET (8:00 p.m. GMT/3:00 p.m. EST)

Venue: Parc des Princes, Paris

TV Info: Eurosport (France) and beIN Sports/beIN Sports Ñ (USA)

Live Stream: beIN Sports Connect

Preamble

PSG and Toulouse met as recently last Saturday in Ligue 1, but they will face each other on the pitch again on Tuesday—this time in the Coupe de France.

The Ligue 1 leaders won 1-0 at Stadium Municipal last weekend, but Dominique Arribage’s men gave Les Parisiens’ heavily rotated side a stern test.

Laurent Blanc’s team will be expected to advance to the round of 16, but with Le President likely to field a weakened starting XI, Le Tefece will fancy their chances of springing a surprise in Paris.

PSG are the current holders of the Coupe de France, but Blanc has made it clear that the competition will not be a major priority for his players this season.

With this in mind, TFC may well be targeting this meeting as the most winnable out of the pair’s January trilogy.

Form Lines (all competitions)

PSG

W 0-1 vs. Inter Milan (Friendly)

W 0-1 vs. ES Wasquehal (Coupe de France)

W 2-0 vs. SC Bastia (Ligue 1)

W 2-1 vs. Olympique Lyonnais (Coupe de la Ligue)

W 0-1 vs. Toulouse (Ligue 1)

Toulouse

D 1-1 vs. Lille OSC (Ligue 1)

W 0-5 vs. Entente Sannois Saint-Gratien (Coupe de France)

W 1-3 vs. Stade de Reims (Ligue 1)

W 2-1 (AET) vs. Olympique de Marseille (Coupe de la Ligue)

L 0-1 vs. PSG (Ligue 1)

Predicted Formations

PSG (4-3-3): Sirigu; Van der Wiel, Aurier, Kimpembe, Kurzawa; Motta (c), Rabiot, Matuidi; Di Maria, Cavani, Augustin.

Toulouse (4-4-2): Goicoechea; Ninkov, Yago, Spajic, Moubandje; Bodiger, Akpa-Akpro (c), Doumbia, Regattin; Braithwaite, Pesic.

Player to Watch Per Side

PSG got a good look at Toulouse’s danger man, Wissam Ben Yedder, when the pair met last Saturday. The French champions may well have won at Stadium Municipal, but the 25-year-old caused them plenty of problems in defence.

The Frenchman has 10 goals from his last 10 appearances across all competitions, and he will be trying to keep his current hot streak of form going in the capital on Tuesday.

As for PSG, Edinson Cavani will be the hosts’ player to watch. After a number of poor performances and complaints about his attitude, the Uruguay international has been dropped by Blanc for the last few games and needs to prove a point.

El Matador started on the bench for the 1-0 win over Toulouse over the weekend, but he was introduced after 18 minutes because of Javier Pastore’s injury.

Cavani failed to impress—again—so badly needs a good performance in front of goal to get some of his critics, not to mention the PSG fans, off his back.

Key Battle

If Toulouse can replicate their performance from last Saturday at Parc des Princes on Tuesday, then the big question will be whether or not they can penetrate PSG’s defence.

With Thiago Silva expected to be back from injury—although only on the bench—Marquinhos rested after suffering a knock over the weekend and David Luiz struggling with discomfort in his back, young Presnel Kimpembe should start for the hosts.

It could be a huge chance for the 20-year-old to impress, but equally, Toulouse’s Ben Yedder and Martin Braithwaite will see it as a chance for them to exploit a weaker than usual PSG back line and secure a surprise win for Le Tefece.

Odds (Oddschecker)

PSG: 2/7

Toulouse: 13

Draw: 11/2

Paris Saint-Germain are into the hat for the Coupe de France round of 32 after squeezing past CFA A outfit ES Wasquehal 1-0 at Stadium Lille Metropole on Sunday.

Laurent Blanc named a far-from-full-strength squad for the trip to northern France, so the starting XI in Villeneuve d’Ascq was largely composed of youngsters and fringe players.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, captain for the day and one of a handful of regular starters in the side, scored the only goal of the game after an hour.

Speaking with the capital club’s official website after the match, Le President was simply relieved to have made it through to the next round.

Blanc said:

It's never easy getting back into competition after a break and there was also some tricky conditions with the weather. We would have preferred to have scored earlier and killed the game off, but we weren't able to do that today. We got through a lot of work last week and so we had a few heavy legs. The main thing was to qualify and we did that tonight.

After his goal in the 1-0 friendly victory over Inter Milan in Doha, Qatar, last Wednesday, young attacker Jean-Kevin Augustin was expected to make the most of a rare start against Wasquehal.

With eight first-team regulars missing for the game on the outskirts of Lille, the 18-year-old had the opportunity to prove that he merits a greater number of opportunities over the second half of the season from the bench or in the starting XI against some of PSG’s weaker opponents.

Augustin failed to take the chance presented to him by Blanc and did more harm than good in a poor performance against Wasquehal.

The teenage scoring sensation missed two very good first-half chances. The first was an opening from right in front of goal, which he somehow failed to connect with, while the second was a volley that he skied from Adrien Rabiot’s inch-perfect lofted pass to the back post.

Augustin missing his second chance was understandable. Although he has the technique to finish that sort of opportunity, a volley in the cold and wet conditions in Lille was not the easiest finish to execute and the PSG No. 29 no doubt had his earlier miss playing on his mind.

That first spurned chance, the miss from almost underneath the Wasquehal crossbar, was Augustin’s most costly error. There is no excuse for the young Frenchman failing to connect with the ball in from the left and had he made contact with the ball, it would have been a certain goal.

Augustin can have no complaints if Blanc does not hand him another chance to impress until perhaps the next Coupe de France game (the round-of-32 draw takes place on Monday evening) after his disappointing outing against Wasquehal.

The teenager must now remain patient until his coach sees fit to either throw him on from the bench or to start him in a game against lower-quality opposition, either in Ligue 1 or the Coupe de France.

Augustin tried hard to make up for his wasteful first half in the second 45 minutes, but he would have done more to aid his cause by passing to an unmarked Ibrahimovic in the dying minutes of the game instead of going for goal and bringing a save out of Wasquehal goalkeeper and captain Romain Samson.

Wasquehal will not be Augustin’s final chance to impress and Blanc will surely give him another opportunity to prove his worth. However, few future opportunities will be as golden as the one that has just passed the PSG youngster by.

Lacina Traore had an extremely eventful 45 minutes for Monaco on Sunday.

The former Everton striker scored four goals in the first half of Monaco's 10-2 win over amateurs St. Jean Beaulieu in the French Cup, before receiving a straight red card during half-time for a clash with Yann Mariotti, who was also sent off.

Solid first half performance from Lacina Traore in the Coupe de France today. pic.twitter.com/0ucPblEZit

— Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) January 3, 2016

Traore made two appearances, scoring once, for the Toffees in a brief loan spell in 2014, but it's safe to say neither of them were as eventful as yesterday's outing.

[YouTube: Football Highlight, Twitter: @FootballCliches, h/t BBC Sport]

Wednesday night sees the beginning of one of Paris Saint-Germain’s most difficult and season-critical periods in recent times as they take on Saint-Etienne for a place in the final of the Coupe de France.

The Parc des Princes will host the first of five games in four different competitions over 14 days that will ultimately define their whole season. Laurent Blanc also has a number of injuries and suspensions to contend with, putting a huge cloud over the rest of their campaign.

Date: Wednesday, April 7

Time: 8 p.m. GMT (9 p.m. CET)/4 p.m. ET

Venue: Parc des Princes, Paris

TV Info: beIN Sport (U.S.), France 2 (France)

Live Stream: beIN Sport Connect

Although delighted with the three points and the crucial Le Classique win over Marseille on Sunday, there was a bigger downside to the victory. Blanc will now have to do without Brazilian David Luiz for four weeks with an injury to his left thigh. He is also without Italian international Thiago Motta for 10 days with the same injury.

It puts a lot of pressure of the remaining midfielders that PSG can call upon, especially with the centre of the park one of Saint-Etienne’s strongest positions.

Form

Paris Saint-Germain

W Marseille 2-3 PSG - Ligue 1

W PSG 3-1 Lorient - Ligue 1

L Bordeaux 3-2 PSG - Ligue 1

D Chelsea 2-2 PSG - Champions League

W PSG 4-1 Lens - Ligue 1

Saint-Etienne

D AS Monaco 1-1 Saint-Etienne - Ligue 1

W Saint-Etienne 2-0 Lille OSC - Ligue 1

W Saint-Etienne 2-0 FC Lorient - Ligue 1

W US Boulogne 1-1 Saint-Etienne (3-4 on penalties) - Coupe de France

D Toulouse FC 1-1 Saint-Etienne - Ligue 1

Predicted Formations

Paris Saint-German (4-3-3): Nicolas Douchez; Gregory van der Wiel, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Lucas Digne; Marco Verratti, Adrien Rabiot, Blaise Matuidi; Javier Pastore, Edinson Cavani, Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Saint-Etienne (4-3-3): Stephane Ruffier; Francois Clerc, Kevin Theophile-Catherine, Loic Perrin, Franck Tabanou; Jeremy Clement, Landry N’Guemo, Fabien Lemoine; Max Gradel, Yohan Mollo, Mevlut Erding

Players to Watch

During Tuesday’s press conference, Saint-Etienne coach Christophe Galtier announced that attacking midfielder Romain Hamouma would be available for Les Verts for Wednesday’s cup match.

He will be a huge part of Galtier’s plans and was missed as they drew 1-1 with Monaco on Friday. The 28-yer-old contributed three assists as Les Stephanois beat Metz 3-2 before the international break but only lasted 45 minutes of the 2-0 win over Lille.

His performances have not been as crucial as they were last season, but with two goals and eight assists, Hamouma is still a crucial member of Saint-Etienne’s attack.

For the home side, with the injuries to Luiz and Motta, there will be an opportunity for Adrien Rabiot to gain more minutes and cement his place in the PSG midfield for the remaining two months.

He has shown in small portions that he is more than capable, and Wednesday is a great chance to further prove himself.

Key Battle

Since his return from the Africa Cup of Nations, Ivorian Max Gradel has been excellent for Saint-Etienne.

His 10 goals and two assists have been a main reason why Les Verts are up at the business end of the table and look set for a place in the Europa League places.

If the former Leeds United winger can continue his form on Wednesday, he will give the away side a great chance of making the Coupe de France final.

Gradel will be up against either veteran Maxwell or France international Lucas Digne. Either way, it will be an excellent battle. Digne has the pace and strength to deal with Gradel’s excellent pace, but the Brazilian is a savvy veteran with bags of experience of playing at the highest level.

That battle could be key to success or failure for Galtier’s side, and a great performance from Gradel could spark a famous win for Saint-Etienne.

Odds (via Oddschecker)

PSG: 10-21

Draw: 10-3

Saint-Etienne: 15-2