Khaberni - A match in the French Cup football competition, on Sunday evening, witnessed an unprecedented event in football history, with players from both teams taking 44 penalty kicks to determine the qualifier to the round of 32 of the competition.
Team Béthon was successful in defeating their guests, Stienford, both amateur division clubs, after nearly 3 hours from the start of the match between them, celebrating under the darkness of the night as the stadium was not fully lit.
The players played 120 minutes of regular and extra time without scoring any goals, but the two teams delivered a long and historic series of penalty kicks to the spectators, reaching 44 attempts.
What's remarkable, an unprecedented event in modern football history, is that the ten players from both teams who took the main set of kicks each missed all the first five attempts for their team.
The excitement continued in the decisive round, which featured an exciting scenario when players from both the Stienford and Béthon teams took a long series of successful attempts, scoring 32 shots.
On the 34th kick, one of Stienford's players sent the ball over the bar, while player Gauthier Thumerl took the penalty kick perfectly and calmly, granting his team, Béthon, the pass to the round of 32 after winning with a score of (22-21) goals.
The French Football Federation praised this series and considered it historic through their social media accounts, while some sources say it was the first match to witness the first 10 penalty kicks being missed.
Despite his professional career as a player and then coach, John Guy Vallé, the Béthon coach, does not remember facing such a scenario before, according to French media outlets.
Vallé stated: "I have never seen penalty kicks like this before, it was a balanced match, on a difficult pitch and bad weather, we wished to play more football, but with the pitch conditions, we know that penalty kicks are not just a matter of luck, we are happy, and feel a slight disappointment towards them because we can imagine what they are going through."
