In the week before the match against Bordeaux, Patrick Arlettaz hoped not to be a “sweet dreamer” and had no doubt that the Stade Français would go all out against Brive despite the lack of stake for the Parisian club.
The suspense did not last for Jean-Bouin. The score was tight until the end of the first half, then the Corréziens took off. At the same time, the Catalans worked hard and produced a great performance against Bordeaux, which was playing its qualification for a semi-final.
One week before the access match in Mont-de-Marsan, USAP, seeing how things were going, proceeded to different coaching in the second half, but the intensity did not change and the Catalan club picked up a victory which was essential at the start of the match and which finally became useless in the progress of the evening.
When you have the first budget in France and you don’t qualify, you understand why today
USAP coach Patrick Arlettaz does not hesitate to draw a parallel between the attitude of his players and those of Stade Français:
“You are kidding us when we talk about human adventure. It is clear that there is one when you know that twenty minutes from the end this victory is useless and that you will have a match the You hold the score and you are proud to win when you know that the following week you will have a very tough match but you do it anyway.
If you recorded the match, send it to the Stade Français, it will do them good I think. We have these values! My players have these values! You asked me the question this week if I thought that the Stade Français was going to play the game. Naively, stupidly, I thought so and then I heard the Stade Français say that it was going to do the job and that we had to do ours. We did it. When you have the first budget in France and you don’t qualify, today you understand why.”
The USAP will play its maintenance on a match in Mont-de-Marsan, next Sunday. After his rant, the USAP coach added a touch of humor: “no Top 14 club has done it, we will watch the Marseille final in football thirty years ago and we will try to be the first forever.“