After a difficult start to the match and despite a long messy offensive game, Lille woke up in the second half to dominate Brest (2-1) and temporarily take fifth place in the championship, at the start of the 25th day. of Ligue 1.

Lille, who remained on five matches without a win against Brest (three draws, two defeats), almost saw this series extend. But, with this success, the Mastiffs have 44 points, one game ahead, one more than Rennes (6th) and five less than Lens (4th), their next opponent in the league. Important in the race for Europe, this victory was laborious. Leaving with the same offensive ambitions as since the start of the season, Lille were cooled from the 8th minute by the opener in Brest.

When a corner fell in the Lille area, Tiago Djalo pushed the ball into his own net, giving the advantage to the Finisterians. Lille then tried to regain their football, consisting of possession and forward play, but their dominance remained sterile for a long time. The score remained unchanged until the break, despite a possession clearly in favor of Lille in the first half (67%).

Paulo Fonseca excludes

The fault, mainly, with an unusual technical waste for this team which counts on several masters to play, starting with André Gomes and Rémi Cabella. The fault, too, with an ounce of bad luck, since in the 29th minute, Jonathan David saw his shot fail on the crossbar of the Brest goalkeeper, Marco Bizot. The minutes that followed saw tempers flare, a tension that remained until the final whistle.

It was on a corner that they had been punished, it was on a corner that Lille took revenge. In the 60th minute, first, when Bafodé Diakité rose above everyone to propel a powerful header into the back of the net. Then, in the 80th minute, it was another defender, Alexsandro, who doubled the score, also from a corner.

Brest, who did not manage to make themselves dangerous to try to pick up the score, sign a bad operation. With 20 points, they remain frozen in 16th place, only one point ahead of the first relegated, Troyes (17th). At the very end of the match, players from both squads clashed in the Brest camp. The coaches of the two clubs, Olivier Roy and Paulo Fonseca, railed at each other for a long time, head to head. The referee ended up excluding the latter, who had hung a yellow and blue ribbon on his coat for this match, one year to the day after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.