Europa League: AC Milan is “archi-favorite” against Rennes, believes Julien Stephan

Facing an “archi-favorite” AC Milan for the Europa League play-off on Thursday, Rennes hopes to “exist” at San Siro to preserve the “sporting interest” of the return match, explained coach Julien Stephan. Rennes supporters like to say that “Julien Stephan has a plan” and the technician summed it up easily on Wednesday: “We will have to start hard, continue hard and finish hard. We will have no choice.” “We are aware of our role as outsiders which is very clear, very clear. Milan are the arch-favorites in this double confrontation,” he insisted.

“I think that the start will be very strong from Milan, they will certainly want to put very, very significant pressure on us from the first minutes and we will have to respond to this intensity from the start,” he said. he also warned his players. The main task of Rennais will be “to exist (in the match) in such a way that the return match can still have a pronounced sporting interest”, he further summarized. And for that, even if it will only be the first leg, it will be necessary above all not to calculate.

“We are not in a position, I think, to be able to calculate anything. Which does not mean not playing an intelligent match, it does not mean not managing certain things and certain match tempos,” he explained. If he did not rule out the possibility of strengthening his midfielder or going back to three central defenders in this match, “it is rather a question of animation and what we are going to leave to Milan and what we will block as a priority” “We will not be able to protect all, all the spaces, but we will have to protect as many as possible in relation to their privileged movements, in relation to what they do, the way in which they attack”. Rennes will nevertheless have two major assets, starting with the thousands - we are talking about 10,000 - supporters who made the trip.

“Of course we are indebted for all these sacrifices. We are responsible, we on the ground, for exemplary commitment, exemplary performance and we will need a performance, tomorrow, that matches the support we have, that is to say say huge,” noted Stephan. The other asset is the relative youth of the group which mixes with its seriousness a healthy dose of carefreeness. “It’s true that, this young generation, we have the impression that it’s trickling down to them,” he admitted. “Now, it is during the match that we will really see if this serenity is a facade serenity or a real serenity which allows us to be focused on the objective,” he tempered.