The Bretons achieved the feat of winning on the field of Red Bull Salzburg (0-4) this Tuesday.
With six points in two matches, Brest can dream of continuing its journey beyond the first round of the Champions League, but coach Éric Roy emphasizes that the victory in Salzburg (4-0) on Tuesday is only ‘A “small step” in this direction. While it is estimated that with the new formula of the C1, a team with 9 points has a good chance of progressing to the play-off for the round of 16, Brest has already gone two-thirds of the way.
This victory is “a bigger step than if we had zero points, two points or even three (…) but it’s only a small step”tempered Roy at a press conference. “Often the last steps are the hardest, as they say. And then I think that adversity will increase too”he continued, while Brest must still host Leverkusen and Real Madrid or travel to Barcelona.
But the matches in Prague against Donetsk or at home against PSV Eindhoven no longer seem to be insurmountable. Roy is all the more cautious as his team suffered a lot defensively for a good hour, even if they were impressively realistic on the counterattack.
What we experienced last year is not trivial, but it is not something that fell from the sky
“We have to keep a lot of humility because it’s true that the match could have turned around” otherwise, he admitted. “We were put in difficulty by this team. We knew his qualities. Perhaps its weaknesses too but above all its qualities, particularly in offensive animation, in placed attacks”he recalled.
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“But hey, we didn’t break up. We first had courage but also quality in the defensive work and then also Marco (Bizot, the goalkeeper) who was decisive”he added. This strength of character of the Finisterians, capable of enduring without losing their lucidity, did not surprise the coach.
“What we experienced last year is not trivial, but it is not something that fell from the sky. That means that this team has something extra, it has a state of mind.he stressed. “The objective was to manage your emotions, to keep a cool head, even when things were rocky, and we knew it was going to rock”he detailed. “Afterwards, what we wanted was above all to be able to put them in difficulty. And there, at this level, I think we achieved it very well”he was satisfied.
