It can be a match that changes the history of the club. – Bruno Genesio
This Thursday, Stade Rennais has an appointment with its history. Beaten 2-0 in the first leg to Leicester, Rennes will have to overturn a mountain to qualify for the first time in their history for a European quarter-final. All the Red and Black people dream of a resounding feat this Thursday (6:45 p.m.) at Roazhon Park, Bruno Genesio in the lead:
“It would be a first qualification in the quarter-finals of the European Cup. It will take a feat, an exceptional performance. For that it will take aggressiveness, pressing from the outset to pack the match. we must already all be convinced that it is possible, that is our case, and everyone must be. We will need our supporters, I know there will be a lot of them, we will really need them, that everyone believes that the feat is possible! It will take an incandescent public from the first to the last minute because everything will be possible whatever the scenario of the match.”
Bruno Genesio appeals to the memory of Rennes-Arsenal
We know we’re going to do it, we’re convinced we’re going to do it.”
The Rennes coach wanted to take the example of the first leg against Arsenal in 2019 to support his argument, a match out of time, where the public had pushed his players as probably never before in the history of the clubs: “Stade Rennais has also shown in its short European history that it is capable of scoring goals against big teams. This was the case against Arsenal. I saw this match, I think we should be inspired by it since at 1-0 for Arsenal after ten minutes, it ended in a 3-1 at the end for Rennes. It means that everything is possible, it means that here, we are able to reverse situations, to overthrow great teams. We’ve done it before, even though I wasn’t the coach, but I think the history of the club is important. We also did it in the more recent past against Lyon, against Paris: teams that are used to European summits. You have to take inspiration from that. _We know we’re going to do it, we’re convinced we’re going to do it, and once again we’ll need everyone’s support to do it._, even if we respect this team a lot, which is a very good team, which was very effective in the first leg. But I think the score of 2-0 is a bit heavy for us in the first leg. But that gives us a lot of hope for this return match, even if we know it will be difficult.“
In the current squad, only Benjamin Bourigeaud (scorer of the equalizing goal) and Jérémy Gélin (Hamari Traoré was suspended) took part in this first leg against Arsenal.
The #Rennesmontada, from social networks to the ears of the players
On social networks, supporters have made it widely known that they too believe in the feat, pushing the hashtag #Rennesmontada into the most used in France on the Twitter network:
A digital wave which, inevitably, was appreciated by the locker room, as Rennes striker Martin Terrier confides: “I saw a hashtag that was started by some fans so it makes us want to do it right and create this achievement even more.“
To achieve this, Terrier’s teammates can count on their current success at Roazhon Park: in their last four home games, they have always won by two goals or more.