“With Bastia, we had beaten Zlatan’s PSG”

France Bleu Nord: Several leading Parisian players will be absent on Thursday evening. Is this an opportunity for the Racing club de Lens?

Jean-Louis Leca: “You know, when we beat Paris with Bastia, it was with Zlatan, Cavani and Verrati. On the other hand, the year before, we had taken three or four from us, and it was supposedly against the B team of PSG. So that doesn’t mean anything… Today, the players who make up the PSG replacement team could be holders in any other club in France. And then when you see what Paris did during the month of the Champion’s League in Lisbon, you need a group and not just eleven players. But this group is one of the five or six best groups in the world ”.

We will fight with all our strength, with our heart

What are your team’s ambitions for this first match of the season at the Bollaert-Delelis stadium?

“We are not going to kid ourselves, we will clearly be the little one. Afterwards, we will clearly defend ourselves. But we know very well that it’s going to be a very complicated match. When the Ligue 1 calendar came out, we didn’t say we were going to take points against this kind of team. But that said, we are competitors. So we do not admit defeat. We will fight with all our strength, with our hearts and then we will give the maximum, and then what will happen will happen ”.

Do the players still not feel a slight regret not to rub shoulders with the team that played in the final of the Champions League against Bayern Munich?

“We are not going to pretend to say rub. Neymar and Mbappé are the two best players in the world. When Messi or Ronaldo stop, they will take the place. Whether it is Paris, Marseille, Monaco or Lyon for that matter, we cannot claim to want to rub shoulders with this or that player of the players of these teams. If the match had been played three weeks ago, we would have played against them. But now, the story is written differently… For us, the most important thing is that our group is in total concentration to get the maintenance ”.

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