After its victory in Prague this Wednesday, Stade Brestois already has, according to statisticians, a 99% chance of qualifying for the Champions League play-offs which will take place in February
. An exceptional performance for the little Tom Thumb of the competition. ” It's good. But 99%, it's not 100%,” smiles Brendan Chardonnet, exemplary captain against Sparta who says he is “proud of what we produce, and I think we deserve what happens to us. It’s flattering to be fourth but we don’t necessarily project ourselves into the ranking.”
After this fourth day, Brest has ten points. That is six more than PSG, 25th and first club not to appear in the list of play-offs, at the moment T. Stade Brestois will surely see behemoths like Real Madrid (18th), Bayern Munich (17th), Arsenal (12th) and Manchester City (10th) are gaining places over time. He may still be missing a point from the four remaining matches, in Barcelona, against PSV, Shaktar and against Real Madrid. But Brest is touching on a new objective which seemed, just a few weeks ago, unexpected in the eyes of the general public.
“We simply love it”
“We come out of this meeting with a lot of pride,” confides Kenny Lala. We play with the right mentality and that makes the difference, maybe we will come out of the shadows a little now. We'll see where it takes us but we allow ourselves to dream. Afterwards, the virtual is not reality. There, for the moment, we're enjoying it. Quite simply.” “I don’t want to get into speculation with the number of points we have,” adds Éric Roy. The Brest coach prefers to highlight “the evening performance. On arrival, we have a feeling of mastery, with maturity even though we are new to the Champions League. There is pride, obviously. We experience events fully, we are in the present. And since we have no perspective on this formula, no history, it’s difficult to know.”
“We weren’t counting on us and we are here”
Fourth in this Champions League, halfway through, behind Liverpool, Sporting and Monaco, Stade Brestois represents France with enthusiasm. Certainly against some disappointing opponents (Salzburg, Sparta Prague), but we still had to win these matches.
Not necessarily the performance that some observers predicted before the launch of the competition. “It’s also a good lesson,” explains Lala. People weren't counting on us and we're here, we're responding. I hope that in the future, our journey will change mentalities. You must always have respect. We accepted it, but it stung us.” Brest is today very close to being at least a future play-off in the Champions League, the most beautiful of the European Cups. Just that!
At the end of the eight matches per club, the first eight will be directly qualified for the rest of the competition. The teams ranked 9th to 24th will compete in play-offs. The others will be eliminated.
France
