Against Lyon, Stade Rennais want to take inspiration from Real Madrid
After the defeat to Marseille, Frédéric Antonetti and his players want to take example on the aggressiveness shown by Real Madrid to cause trouble to Lyon this Saturday, and keep on growing.
Rennes, still second in the league, have carefully studied their defeat of last week against l’OM (0-2). The objective was to “improve in what we were not able to do”, according to Frédéric Antonetti. "I showed them the game the way I had experienced it, he explained. Despite the impression left by the last fifteen minutes, I believe that over the first 75 minutes we were closer to 1-1 than to 2-0.”
Although he will probably have to do without three major players in Lyon (Brahimi, and maybe Kembo and Boukari), Frédéric Antonetti reckon his team should do better in the attacking zones. Yann M’Vila, once again called with France this Thursday, has heard the message: “When we look at the video, we see that there wasn’t such a huge difference between them and us. (…) We saw they showed much more determination than us. When one of their players crossed, there were team-mate to call for the ball, on our side, there was no-one. This will be an example to remember for the future.”
"In France, we are sometimes a bit romantic”
During the press conference, Frédéric Antonetti insisted on the performance of Real Madrid, who knocked Lyon out of the Champions League on Wednesday (3-0). A victory earned thanks to an “aggressiveness above average”. And he compares the game of his players against OM and the performance by Madrid: “every time we had a cross, there was no aggressiveness to try and score. For them, on every cross, three or four whites were rushing in.” Pointing at the performance of the Madrid defenders Pépé and Marcelo, he put the emphasis on the “determination” shown by José Mourinho’s men. A way to show the way to follow before regretting the fact that “in France, we are sometimes a bit romantic in our approach”.
In Gerland, where Lyon hasn’t lost in Ligue since September 25th against Saint- Étienne, Frédéric Antonetti would happily settle for a draw. Not Yann M’Vila: “Lyon is a direct competitor at the moment, we need to leave them behind us. Taking three points would be very positive to us. We have always been behind, now it’s our turn to be in front a little bit.”
Nicolas Auffray - Le Mensuel de Rennes
- Photo: www.rennes.lemensuel.com