Let whoever bet a penny on it at the start of the season come and collect their jackpot. You had to have flair to unearth the sensation of the Ligue 1 2023-24 vintage, hidden behind the 15th budget of the championship (48 million euros), a dilapidated stadium with 15,000 seats and a team of no names supposed to fight for maintenance.
Except that this Stade Brestois remains on an incredible series of eight victories and a draw for almost three months, and that it slipped onto the podium of our L1 before challenging Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday at the Parc des Princes. We won’t go so far as to sell you that PSG’s 12th French championship title is threatened by these diehard Finisterians, but AS Monaco, OM, LOSC and RC Lens have concerns in their quest for the Champions League.
We could praise the thrill season of Pierre Lees-Melou, current leader of the ratings ranking of The Team in front of Kylian Mbappé, and approached in vain by Stade Rennais this winter. But if the Brest epic had to have a name, it would be that of its coach, Eric Roy. With a major question: how was a 56-year-old technician, whose only experience dates back to Antiquity (2010-2011), able to transform Brest, destined for the descent (the club was 17th in Ligue 1 at its arrival in January 2023) into a serious contender for the podium? The answer undoubtedly lies in his management, which clearly contrasts with that of his predecessor Michel Der Zakarian, and which allowed him to immediately conquer his group.
The “comeback” against RC Lens as a “founding match”
“He always wants the players to accompany him, and not in something strict, so the team followed him naturally,” Brest midfielder Hugo Magnetti said two weeks ago. on the Ligue 1 website. When he arrived, he received us all one by one and I felt that he really listened to us. He’s not at all a coach who came with fixed ideas, and that’s what made the difference in my opinion. He changed Stade Brestois. »
After being able to save the club in Ligue 1 thanks to a fantastic return phase last year (14th, nine points ahead of the first relegated team), Eric Roy continued his work from the first day of the following season. Brest-Lens, August 13: led 0-2 by the vice-champion of France after 22 minutes of play at Francis Le Blé, the Bretons had made an incredible comeback to win 3-2. A “founding match”, according to Eric Roy.
Eric Roy rewards his players with restaurants and rest days
And the symbol of special group management, which the coach detailed in September on RMC Sport : “I want to be in participatory management. The players must decide between themselves the number of points they can take before a series of matches, that they believe in it. It’s important that they have a visualization of what they are capable of doing.” In this case, they indicated before the restart that they were aiming for six points over the first four delicate days of Ligue 1 (against Lens, Le Havre, Marseille and Rennes). Results: seven points collected over the period for “Eric the King” and his men.
“This season, we agree on this type of objectives for a period of four or five matches,” confirms Hugo Magnetti. And as soon as we reach a goal, the coach offers us a restaurant together, or we get additional days off. It helps to establish this family spirit. » A way of operating that is not new, according to the midfielder Abdelrafik Gérardwho was at RC Lens when Eric Roy arrived in 2017, as general manager, within a club then 19th in Ligue 2.
An “unfair dismissal” to conclude his story at OGC Nice
“He asked the players to present their personal objectives to him, and he sought to make them consistent with those of the club, which he wanted to bring out from the bottom of Ligue 2,” explains the 30-year-old player, trained at PSG . He wanted to shake up mentalities at the club. And when we look at the rest of the story for RC Lens, we say to ourselves that he played his role well for a year and a half. » Franck Haise also confided last year that Eric Roy had weighed in his choice to stay with the RC Lens reserve, when he was in demand, in the summer of 2018. We know what happens next for the manager of the Sang et Or, propelled onto the bench of the first team in February 2020. A chance that Eric Roy has not often had, except in Nice in March 2010. At the time, the Gym had called on its director sportsman to try to turn around a club 17th in Ligue 1 (well, well).
Balanced in accounting terms (23 wins, 24 draws and 23 defeats), his record on the Côte d’Azur, at the head of a team that has often wandered between 15th and 17th place, remains very mixed. He will be asked to leave the bench to join the offices by occupying an exclusive position as general manager of the Aiglons, from November 2011. It’s simple, Eric Roy has known almost everything with his hometown club, including a victory at the industrial tribunal for “unfair dismissal” in 2013. Among his roles: former player, coach, general manager, sports director but also director of marketing, communications and public relations, as well as development.
“People ended up seeing him more as a general manager”
“In Nice, they made him do all the tasks, he was barely a speaker,” smiles the emblematic former Lensois president Gervais Martel, who met him at La Gaillette in 2017. He knows inside out how a professional club works thanks to all these experiences. » In his construction as a coach, these multiple hats have brought him as much as they have served him, especially when it comes to finding a bench, despite a few touches in Lille (in 2015), in Lorient (in 2016) and already in Brest (in 2019 and 2021), where sports director Grégory Lorenzi holds him in high esteem.
People ended up seeing him more as a general manager, a sports director, an office man, whereas his favorite thing is the field, indicates journalist Fabien Lévêque, who shared the microphone with Eric Roy on France Télévisions from 2019 to 2022. Being a consultant always offered him a certain visibility. It still existed, but not on the right side of the field. Brest arrived at the right time for him, when he no longer really believed in another chance on a bench in L1. Today, he proves to everyone that we forgot him a little too quickly. It’s a great revenge, because wherever he went, he did a great job. »
“Surprised at the proportions” taken by his comments during Nantes-Nice
His experience as a consultant will be a little different from the rule. At best anecdotal, at worst controversial, like its 2022 Coupe de France final between Nantes and Nice (1-0). At the time, he had stood out for his partiality by attacking, among other things, the refereeing of Stéphanie Frappart: “The story of the penalty is rubbish. We will decide the winner of a final on this penalty. It’s completely rubbish.”
“He was surprised by the proportions it had taken on the evening of the match,” explains Fabien Lévêque. It was his heart that spoke and there was nothing to get excited about. » Unlike the first part of the season in Brest, exhilarating as can be, which Eric Roy had also prophesied. During his presentation to the press in January 2023, he laughed while answering a question about his objectives at the head of the club: “The Champions League from this season”. From joke to reality, only one year has passed.