Eleventh in Ligue 1 after fifteen days with 19 points, Stade Brestois launches its new year this Sunday with a trip to Angers (15th with 13 points). A great opportunity for Brest to open up an even bigger gap with the red zone, after its success against Nantes in December, which put it on a good track in the championship. A good result in Angers on Sunday would also reinforce a first part of the season that Éric Roy had described as “very, very good” at the end of December. “If someone had told me, “you will have 19 points with two more games to finish the first leg in L1 (Angers and Lyon) and thirteen points in the Champions League”… I think we would have signed.”
“I heard we won’t have a team…”
“I heard that we wouldn't have a team, that we wouldn't take points in the Champions League, that we would go down to Ligue 2,” confides Grégory Lorenzi, who almost joined Rennes this summer. For the Brest sports director, “we had an off-season with a lot of doubts about the construction of the squad. And even if we are only halfway there, we are still showing consistency to succeed in achieving our objectives. Which are to ensure the most comfortable support possible and have fun in the Champions League.” On this competition, Lorenzi “100% acknowledges that the European campaign is already a success. I hope that we don't minimize this and that the supporters remember it for the rest of their lives. Only the old ones can compare with the generations before but when I talk to some of them, they tell me that this is currently the greatest period in the history of the club. It is a source of pride to see the pleasure provided. It’s a feeling of fullness.”
“Praise is what puts you to sleep”
Even if Brest will play at least the Champions League play-offs, Lorenzi insists on maintaining priority on the championship in 2025, “where there are still many points to be taken. What allowed us to be European is that last season we were able to present a combative state of mind at the weekend.” What he did not find in Auxerre (3-0 defeat) or Montpellier (3-1) in September and November. The black spot? “Is it because of the Champions League? Do players unconsciously protect themselves for this? It's a question. This makes us think about how the players can better approach these weeks with European matches, how we activate certain levers to be more regular”, asks the sports director for whom, “what is hard is also to switch back. We do sensational things in the European Cup, we are praised for that but the praise is what puts you to sleep.”
“Rather satisfied” with the construction of the Brest squad, which took time to take shape with five arrivals on August 31 during the last day of the transfer window, Lorenzi believes “that the group is homogeneous and rather well balanced, with diversity. We have power, speed, technical players,” he says, while expecting more from a player like Romain Faivre, seven starts between L1 and the Champions League: “We know his qualities, what he can bring to the team. It's a complicated pass but there's no problem with him. There is competition, we have to accept it.”
