Forget Europe ... and find Europe: after its bitter failure in the Champions League, Rennes receives Lens this Saturday (5:00 p.m.) with the mission of hanging up the leading car as soon as possible in order to afford a new continental opportunity next year.
In all competitions, Julien Stéphan's men have recorded six defeats and only one victory in their last eight matches.
In Ligue 1, they fell to 7th place in the standings and with their 19 points, they are closer to 16 points from Bordeaux, 13th, than 23 points from the top Europeans.
Facing the Lensois, promoted without complex and ambushed just a little behind them, the Rennais absolutely must return to victory.
“The speech will change.
We must be aware that the slope is dangerous and that it rather brings us down, Stéphan warned.
The Champions League is over.
We are eliminated from all European competitions.
We have to come back to Ligue 1. Ligue 1 is tough and at the moment all the Ligue 1 teams can beat us. ”
The Breton coach has spotted several areas for progress: "We need to be more vertical, better on transitions, we need to attack the opponent's penalty area faster."
Europeans before the truce
In any case, he received the strong support of the club president: “I have no doubt about Julien, no doubt.
I am sure of it.
For me, he perfectly embodies the long-term project, ”said Nicolas Holveck in an interview with the daily
Ouest-France
.
After putting a little pressure on the players before the match in Krasnodar, lost 1-0 on Wednesday, the leader minimized the European failure: “So we had two very big pieces and a very big competitor (Chelsea, Sevilla and Krasnodar ), but that's normal, we were hat 4, we said it from the start. ”
"Now, we only have one goal, it is to have a very good championship to return to the European Cup and show that we have learned," he added, claiming that the team clings to the European wagon before the truce.
“It will require a collective awareness and a collective reaction.
I expect pride, I expect maximum commitment, I expect a lot of solidarity between players (...).
We have to start the match like starving people, ”insisted Holveck.
For this, it will be necessary to remobilize a group "affected" by the defeats, recognized the goalkeeper Romain Salin, who at 36 years old made his debut in the Champions League on Wednesday after an injury to Alfred Gomis, and signed Friday morning a one year extension of his contract, until 2022.
A little too beautiful
“We have players who are young, it's not a pleasure to lose.
It's human.
Defeat sucks you down, it can change the way you see things and make you more critical.
You have to know how to be cool.
If the sun comes back, it will also teach us to put things into perspective, both good and bad times.
But the sun has to come back, ”he explained.
Stéphan also recognizes that the players could have seen themselves a little too beautiful: “There has certainly been damage with this Champions League.
You have to have the honesty to say it, and the humility to reconsider that when we are at 100%, we are a normal Ligue 1 team. "
"When we play at 110, 120%, we manage to outperform as was the case last year, and when we play at 70% or 80% as it could have been the case for some league matches, we are in danger, ”insisted the coach.
For the club, the poor performance on the European scene is "a disappointment" or a source of "frustration", but not a failure.
However, not going back next year would clearly be one.
“Until then, Arbeit, get to work!” Said Salin.
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League 1 standings