Rennes won their third Coupe de France last April, beating Paris Saint-Germain on penalties after a 2-2 draw at the Stade de France. One of the favourites against this season, they were nonetheless made to work hard by Ligue 1 Conforama rivals Angers SCO on Tuesday.

The Bretons led 2-0 and 3-1 at the Stade Raymond Kopa, but the hosts scored twice inside the final 10 minutes, ultimately leaving it up to Jérémy Gélin to decide the game in the 110th minute with his first senior goal.

Stéphan: 'Character'

"It was a crazy match," said a relieved Stéphan at full-time. "At 3-1 we should've controlled things better. This shows how much progress we still need to make to become a top team. If you want to achieve higher ambitions you can't have such defensive mistakes. Despite that, we showed our trademark character. We lost control but we had the talent at any given moment to make the difference, Scoring five goals against Angers is no small feat. Now we must recover."

Rennes are joined in the quarter-finals by Dijon FCO, whose progress was ensured even later, with Stephy Mavidi scoring with the final kick of the ball to seal a 2-1 win over Championnat National 3 FC de Limonest.

"The main thing in the Cup is to get through to the next round, so the good news is that we're in the quarter-finals," said Dijon coach Stéphane Jobard. "We're very aware of the fact that we snuck through." Opposite number Nicolas Pinard said his players "would rather have lost 5-0."

Shock loss for Montpellier

There was no such late release for Montpellier. The 1990 winners of this competition were overwhelming favourites against fourth-tier ASM Belfort, but despite lining up with a full-strength team which included top scorer Andy Delort, they couldn't find a way through and were edged out on penalties.

The defeat also cost La Paillade the use of Delort and number one goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli for next Saturday's trip to PSG, the former picking up a third yellow card; the latter sent off in the last minute.

"We had a very bad evening," lamented coach Michel Der Zakarian. "We didn't turn up. Despite this we had three chances that we had to have scored. They skilfully rode their luck and knocked us out. It's a shame, a big psychological blow." Belfort coach Anthony Hacquard could barely believe it. "It's huge!" he said. "The draw? We'll wait and see but it'll be a big party either way."

Bounga blasts Sainté past Monaco

That party will not come against AS Monaco, however. The five-time champions are still finding their feet under new coach Roberto Moreno, and despite positive performance against AS Saint-Etienne, were undone by a lone Denis Bouanga goal.

"We've improved a lot since losing 3-1 to Strasbourg last Saturday," said Moreno. "The team did everything I asked. It was a difficult game but we had chances. I'm very happy with the players who played. Jemerson hadn't played for a month and he was fine, same for Benoît Badiashile." 

"We showed courage," said ASSE coach Claude Puel. "We had to gamble with some players who were coming back from injury, who were without match practice. It wasn't expected that Romain Hamouma or Denis Bouanga carried the whole game on their shoulders. It's a team victory. We'll see what the draw's like for the quarter-finals. I can't imagine Paris being fun opponents."

More where that came from...

Last year's runners up PSG will attempt to book their progress on Wednesday evening against Pau FC. Olympique de Marseille take on RC Strasbourg Alsace while LOSC will look to avoid a banana skin at SAS Épinal.