Paris Saint-Germain and Brest faced off this Tuesday at the Stade du Roudourou Arena as part of the Champions League 2024-2025 play-offs. The match ended in a 0-3 Parisian victory (video highlights Brest/PSG). After the match, Brest coach Eric Roy spoke at a press conference. He underlined the gap in realism as well as PSG’s strengths. Not forgetting a little humor about the return in a week’s time.
Roy: “There are no secrets in top-level sport.
Any regrets, particularly at the end of the first half?
We always come away from these games against PSG with a lot of regrets. First of all, the 1st goal was a bit unfortunate. Then, just before half-time, we had the chance to come back, we had a moment of strength.
Unfortunately, even if I can’t fault my team much in terms of spirit and desire to do things, we lacked realism. From that point on, you can’t exist against a great team. Particularly PSG, who are in their prime. We needed favourable circumstances, and they weren’t there for us.
It’s frustrating, I think 3-0 is a bit heavy, but then in top-level sport there’s no secret. You have to be realistic, and we weren’t realistic. So PSG’s victory is deserved, quite logical.
Roy “It seems mission impossible, but we’re not focused on the return leg now.”
Is qualification already a foregone conclusion?
If you can imagine 4-0 at the Parc (laughs)…The problem is that beyond scoring 4 goals at the Parc, which is already…We’d have to avoid taking any. And we see that Paris is scoring goals for everyone at the moment.
It seems like mission impossible, but we’re not focused on the return leg now, we’re focused on the Ligue 1 match on Friday. Because we had the good idea of scheduling it in 3 days’ time. We’ll have to perform well.
Are you dreading the end of the Champions League for the group? Is it important to have the other competitions as levers?
Our ambition is always to win every match we play. We’re not forgetting that we can reach the semi-finals of the Coupe de France. It’s always better to have competitions to play in, with a possible exciting end to the season. There’s nothing worse than not having a goal.
As for dreading the end, yes and no. It would be a disappointment. It would be a disappointment. We want to take our chances, but it’s hard. We had our chances, but we had to be more realistic.
Roy “We were outnumbered in midfield and it didn’t show.”
A desire to densify the midfield? Did Vitinha make the difference?
Definitely. We were outnumbered in midfield and it didn’t show. Vitinha, Neves and Ruiz are players with incredible qualities. That makes all the difference. When you play at the very highest level, like FC Barcelona, you realize the quality of the players. I told Luis Enrique that it must be a pleasure to have a team like this. (…) Top-level sport is cruel, and it’s only logical that we should lose.
No regrets about wanting to play?
It’s true that it doesn’t work. There’s a logic to it, they’re a better team than us, even if you can get a result in one game. We needed positive circumstances and we didn’t get them. We could have been level at half-time, but that’s not the case. We also had some good time in the second half, but we didn’t capitalize. The top thing is realism.
I think there are 2 goals we really need to avoid. On the first, we said we had to get the ball out of the danger zone quickly, and on the second we had to be more intelligent. On the 3rd, we lacked aggression.
We’ve seen that the great teams, when they’re in trouble, like Marquinhos or Pacho, they also know how to clear. We need to learn, to be more mature and tougher. We can’t pretend to master everything, especially in this competition.
Roy “I think they’re one of the 4-5 favourites.”
Is PSG cut out to win the LDC?
As I’ve already said, I think they’re one of the 4-5 favourites. Even if I felt Barça were very strong, I don’t think Paris is inferior. I don’t think they have anything to envy other teams. And I sincerely think they’re much stronger collectively than last year, in terms of effort and ball management.
They’re one of the favourites, but there are others. You need a great team and a bit of success. We’ll have to wait and see. But they haven’t qualified yet, so we’ll see (smiles).
Were you frustrated by the set-pieces?
We were determined and we hit the bar. It’s the little things that make a game turn around. The ball didn’t go in, which changes things, so it’s 0-2 at half-time rather than 1-1. We had periods when we were able to put them in trouble. But they’re very talented and very solid.
