Paris Saint-Germain have requested that their next Coupe de France match be postponed in order to aid their preparations for a Champions League round-of-16 clash against Chelsea.
PSG fought back late on to beat Toulouse 2-1 in the Coupe de France on Tuesday in a performance that brought boos from supporters at half-time.
The French champions are scheduled to play in the next round of that competition on Feb. 10 — six days before taking on Chelsea in the first leg of their European tie.
A league match against Lille must be squeezed in between those two games, meaning PSG are set to play seven times before hosting Chelsea in Paris on Feb. 16.
PSG boss Laurent Blanc said he hoped that the French Football Federation could help alleviate their “crazy” schedule by moving the date of their round-of-16 match in the Coupe de France.
“The way to sort out the problem would have been to get knocked out of the two [domestic] cup competitions, but we don’t want that,” Blanc said at a postmatch news conference.
“We’re Paris Saint-Germain — we can’t think like that — but on the other hand, I hope our last week [before the Chelsea game] will be rearranged.”
If the current schedule is maintained, PSG will end up playing 10 matches in five weeks before the first Chelsea game — four more than the English champions.
If the Coupe de France fixture is moved, however, the runaway Ligue 1 leaders would get a brief break after taking on arch-rivals Marseille on Feb. 7.
That would allow them to play the Lille game on the Friday before the first leg against Chelsea.
“We hope that the federation pay attention to this request,” Blanc said. “It’s going to cause some grinding of teeth but we’re also fighting for France’s UEFA co-efficient.”