Franck Haise on the possibility of winning the league: “We can always dream, but we know how difficult it is to win.”

The Ligue 1 championship is currently one of the tightest in Europe, and both Marseille and Lens have managed to put themselves back into the race to challenge the league giants, PSG. Following Lens’ 2-1 victory against Strasbourg, which brought them within three points of PSG (who are set to play Nice on Saturday), Franck Haise commented on the match stating, 

“I was not really satisfied with this first half. We were pretty solid defensively and the opponent had a hard time unbalancing us. But there was better to do in the use of the ball. Each time we played simple and fair, we created an opportunity (including the goal scored by Frankowski, 11th). We had too much technical waste. It was linked to our game but also to the opponent, who displayed great athletic density.”

The in-form coach continued to speak about his team’s character on the pitch and the achievement of already passing last year’s point total. That success has the former Ligue 1 champions within reach of the capital city. Haise spoke about the race and the chance of winning explaining, “Everyone manages their pressure, we manage ours. Then everyone does what they have to do. There are eight matches left, so we’ll talk about that a little later. We don’t forbid ourselves anything, but we are just aware of the difficulty of winning a match, every time. We saw it against Angers (3-0), Rennes (1-0) and again in front of Strasbourg. We can always dream but we know how difficult it is to win matches. I want us to play the last eight with courage, personality and of course also quality. Afterwards, if we have to get something… For the moment, we have what we deserve after match day 30, we must also deserve it after 38!”

Lens are positioning themselves to not only have a shot at playing European football next year but competing for the title. If Lens are able to win their remaining matches they put themselves in a very good position to have a chance at challenging the current champions. However, when we review the schedule the easier path to a perfect finish on paper lies with the league leaders.

GFFN | Tony DesRois