RENNES: A high-speed overnight train whisking some 800 Angers fans home to Brittany after an own-goal defeat to Paris Saint Germain in the French Cup final broke down and stopped for four hours.
The specially laid on train which had left Paris' Gare de Montparnasse at 1:17am local time (2317 GMT) did manage to trundle into a station at Sarthe in the early hours of Sunday, allowing the forlorn passengers a welcome leg stretch.
"After the defeat, that's all we needed. We have called it 'the losers train'," said Angers fan Christophe Guicheteau.
"But we were able to get off at Sarthe and find a bakery - we bought 100 croissants from him," he added.
The TGV train underwent repairs and continued its journey to the west of France, finally arriving at Angers at 0715.
French train authority SNCF originally put at 1200 the number of fans on the train, later downsizing that figure to 800.
Unfortunate Issa Cissokho headed agonisingly into his own net in stoppage time to give Paris Saint-Germain a 1-0 win over Angers, who have never won a major trophy, in the French Cup final on Saturday.