In Brittany, we trust the Bretons and the French! This is, somewhat bluntly, what we learn from the latest weekly letter from the Football Observatory (CIES), published Wednesday May 1, 2024. The Swiss institute has, in fact, calculated the football index. territorial anchorage of almost 1,000 teams in 58 leagues around the world. This reflects the difference between the number of minutes played by nationals and players trained at the club compared to others, over the last year (between April 23, 2023 and April 23, 2024).
It turns out that in this area, Stade Rennais, Stade Brestois and FC Lorient stand out and are pulling French football to the top. All you have to do is take a closer look at the match sheet of the last Breton derby, Rennes – Brest, brilliantly won by the Finistériens at the end of a crazy scenario (4-5): out of the 30 players who participated at the meeting, 21 were French players, and six trained at the club (mainly in Rennes).
The three Bretons in the top 6 of Ligue 1
Thus, in France, only Le Havre and Montpellier have a better territorial anchoring index than Rennes (3rd), while Brest (5th) and Lorient (6th) also do well. In Ligue 1, Brest is even the third team which plays with the most French people (73%), but has a gap in terms of players trained at the club (10%).
At European level, in the Big 5 (England, Germany, Italy, Spain, France), the ranking is logically dominated by Athletic Bilbao and its policy of only Basque players, but Stade Rennais ranks 13th, the Stade Brestois in 16th and FC Lorient in 18th. In Ligue 2, En Avant Guingamp also stands out, with a sixth place.
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