Very happy with the victory of his men on the Brest pitch (0-1) this Saturday in Ligue 1, Franck Haise praised the ability of his group to manage the match to achieve a second victory in a row.
Coach, you had to suffer to achieve this victory…
First we had to be good. I think that apart from the start, we really had a good first half. Given the number of chances we had, the bill could even have been bigger. Leading 1-0 at the break in Brest, given the appearance of the first period, I suspected that there would be a strong reaction from our opponent, and that was the case. At that point, it was more difficult to get the balloons out, more difficult to use them and reassemble them. But we at least remained solid and everyone worked until the end to preserve the victory and our clean sheet, which is not easy here.
At halftime, did you ask your players to produce the same thing as in the first half? Where was the plan to already be in resilience?
Our plan was to continue to hurt this team, to have interesting outings, like in the first half, which allowed us to sometimes pierce them with two or three passes. But on the other hand, I knew and I had warned the players that there would be a different intensity, that they would come looking for us higher and that we had to be able to adapt to it. We did it correctly defensively by regrouping, perhaps sometimes a little too low. If there are regrets to have, it is above all the fact of not having been able to exploit certain balls better, because there was room to hurt them. But I don't have many regrets after winning 1-0 in Brest.
Have the entrants loosened their grip a little?
We modified our system a little to better match in the heart of the game with their three midfielders, in particular Sofiane (Diop) who I think had a very good start. Tanguy (Ndombele) also worked well, those who entered were quite interesting and allowed us not to have to suffer completely until the end.
Dante said in the mixed zone that we had to retain the positive, in particular this self-sacrifice in the second half after an interesting first act. These are good signals in the game as well as in combat…
We are not a team that can afford to say: “We are going to dominate for 90 minutes”. Even less an opponent like Brest, who is in the Champions League, who is very solid, who had an exceptional last season and who retained a lot of strength. I even find that they have an even more homogeneous group. We are capable of producing what we did in the first half, but to say that we are going to dominate 90 minutes, we are not there. We must also be able to fight, to oppose intelligently, to make variations to loosen the grip… We can be satisfied with that.
Do Ali Abdi's performances surprise you?
He's a player that I already followed when I was at Lens, who has always been in my little papers. I know his qualities. Afterwards, you have to be able to make the switch from Ligue 2, where he had been playing for 5-6 years, to Ligue 1. He is a Tunisian international, he already had a lot of experience and a lot of qualities. I'm not surprised by what he's doing, I know that with the determination he has, even at 31, he's going to get even better.
The back-to-back draws were certainly frustrating. Succeeding in two successes in the derby and then in Brest, do you think this can take you a step further in your ambitions?
We can always talk about ambitions, but it is first and foremost what we put on the ground that determines them. It's only been two wins, but we're on a run of six games without defeat in the league. We took 12 points in the last six games, having faced Lens, Paris, Monaco, Brest. Even if we could have changed by converting a draw into a victory and we could have taken even more points, taking 12 points over the last six matches, that means that we are starting to have a form of regularity, even against to very big opponents.
Brest often struggles in the weeks preceding a European Cup match. For your team, it's quite the opposite. Are you hoping for a shift this time?
I would prefer to perform well before and after the European Cup and for us to take points in both competitions. This would be in an ideal world. In any case, you have to work for it.
