After having believed to obtain the equalizer at 3-3 against Villarreal and the qualification for the round of 16 of the Europa League, the goal refused by the VAR is an “emotional elevator” which deprives Rennes of a “trigger”, deplored Thursday coach Julien Stephan.
Dominated by more experienced Spaniards, Rennes thought they had snatched their ticket to the eighth place when Lorenz Assignon scored in the seventh minute of added time. But the VAR reminded the referee, who had validated the goal, that at the start of the action, Enzo Le Fée had recovered a ball from a direct free kick that he had taken himself and which had hit the transversal, which is prohibited by the regulation.
“I learned (this rule) too at that time to be very honest,” Stephan admitted after the match. “I knew it from the penalty spot but I didn’t think it could exist from a free kick,” he continued. Shortly after the goal was disallowed, the referee blew the whistle for the end of the match.
“It’s an emotional lift at that moment, because it finally clicks! , finally something that comes to fruition, which rewards the generosity, the efforts, the self-sacrifice of all the players,” regretted the coach again.
Second place, which sends Rennes into the play-off in February, against one of the third places in the group stage of the Champions League, remains satisfactory, Stephan moderated. “When you have the winner of the Europa League (of 2021) in your group, you cannot talk about failure,” he argued. “There were two matches against them, very, very close,” he said. There was a penalty in the 90th minute there (0-1 defeat), which could have allowed us to get back to 1-1. Today, in the 98th minute, there was this action which could have allowed us to equalize. It’s nothing at all.”
But this mainly came down to the persistent defensive fragility of the Bretons. “We have to learn faster, very, very quickly (…), especially in these matches against experienced opponents who do not require much to sanction,” detailed Stephan.
“There is a lot of good will, a lot of energy, there is, I found, progress in certain sectors of the game, but we still concede three goals today,” he also underlined. “We will have to find the trigger by maintaining this state of mind but by reducing the possibilities for the adversaries,” he concluded.
